KCG Holdings, Inc. is an American global financial services firm engaging in market making,

high-frequency trading High-frequency trading (HFT) is a type of algorithmic financial trading characterized by high speeds, high turnover rates, and high order-to-trade ratios that leverages high-frequency financial data and electronic trading tools. While there is no ...

, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. The company was formed on July 1, 2013, upon the completion of the merger between Knight Capital Group, Inc. and GETCO Holding Company, LLC. Global growth equity firm

General Atlantic General Atlantic (also known as "GA") is an American growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for global growth companies, headquartered in New York, United States. The firm was founded in 1980 as the captive investment team for ...

, with a 25% stake in GETCO, made an additional equity investment at the time of the merger. Rene Kern, managing director at General Atlantic joined the board of directors On April 20, 2017, KCG announced that it had agreed to be acquired by

Virtu Financial Virtu Financial is an American company that provides financial services, trading products and market making services. Virtu provides product suite including offerings in execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics and broker-neutral, multi-dealer p ...

for $20 per share in cash.

History

Getco LLC The Global Electronic Trading Company (GETCO), or Getco LLC, is an American proprietary algorithmic trading and electronic market making firm based in Chicago, Illinois. In December 2012, the firm agreed to acquire Knight Capital Group; this mer ...

was founded in 1999 by Stephen Schuler and Daniel Tierney, former floor traders in Chicago, and had 400 employees at the time of the merger. The firm's primary business was electronic market making/

, though it also provided execution algorithms and a

dark pool In finance, a dark pool (also black pool) is a private forum (alternative trading system or ATS) for trading securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments.Knight Capital Group The Knight Capital Group was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. With its high-frequency trading algorithms Knight was the largest trader in U.S. equiti ...

was founded in 1995 as Knight/Trimark Group and had about 1400 employees at the time of the merger. Its largest business was market-making in US equities for retail

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

ages, though it also provided other services such as electronic execution, dark pools, plus institutional sales and trading. In August 2012, a technological/managerial "breakdown" caused Knight to lose $460m, nearly putting the firm out of business. In December 2012, it agreed to be acquired by Getco LLC. The merger was approved by the respective stockholders and unitholders of both companies on June 25, 2013. On July 8, 2013, chief executive officer Daniel Coleman rang the opening bell at the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

, marking the completion of Knight and Getco's merger and the unveiling of a new corporate identity, KCG Holdings. In 2014, 27 million shares of Platinum were acquired by KCG Holdings. In January 2015, KCG Holdings announced it would be selling its foreign exchange trading platform KCG Hotspot to

BATS Global Markets Bats Global Markets is a global stock exchange operator based in Lenexa, Kansas, with additional offices in London, New York, Chicago, and Singapore. Bats was founded in June 2005, became operator of a licensed U.S. stock exchange in 2008 and o ...

for $365 million. In April 2017, Virtu Financial announced that it would purchase KCG Holdings for US$1.4 billion in cash. The acquisition closed on July 20, 2017.

References

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External links

KCG Website
Financial services companies established in 2013 American companies established in 2013 Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Financial services companies based in New Jersey Companies based in Jersey City, New Jersey 2017 mergers and acquisitions

History

See also

References

External links