XTX Markets, one of the new breed of electronic trading firms taking share from banks, has named a market structure expert at another of Europe’s upstart trading outfits to its board.

Niki Beattie, a former head of Europe, Middle East and Africa market structure at Merrill Lynch, will take on the role of non-executive director and chairman on October 1, XTX said in a statement.

Her strategic advisory firm, Market Structure Partners, works with trading venues and clearing houses, among others, on the rules and regulations governing securities trading in capital markets.

Non-bank liquidity provider XTX Markets has appointed Niki Beattie as a non-executive chairman and a member of the board, effective from October 1.

Beattie is the founder and managing director of independent consultancy Market Structure Partners. She also holds a number of non-executive board roles, including as non-executive chairman of the Aquis Exchange.

Beattie is also a member of the Secondary Markets Advisory Committee of the European Securities Markets Authority, …

XTX Markets names Niki Beattie as a Non-Executive Director and Chairman effective 1st October.
After a career in investment banking, Ms. Beattie founded Market Structure Partners which is an independent strategic consultancy specialising in capital markets structure where she has worked on many projects with some of the world’s leading trading venues, hedge funds, asset managers and government institutions…

New EU rules are great news for pension funds and retail investors, says Norma Cohen

…Take the requirement to unbundle the purchase of research services, says Nicola Beattie, founder of Market Structure Partners, a consultancy specialising in helping buy- and sellside companies to improve interaction. Under current practice, end clients pay for research; returns to investors are net of brokerage commissions. “Free” research to fund managers is effectively paid for by their clients. Fund managers “are not going to pay more for research than they used to pay”, Ms Beattie says, “but now it will come out of their own profit and loss account.” That, in turn, could mean higher returns for pension schemes. Already some of the biggest names in fund management have announced their intention to do just that, including Vanguard, Aberdeen and Jupiter…

…“This must have been a massive distraction for the board and for him,” says Niki Beattie, chief executive of Market Structure Partners, a consultancy. “I don’t think there’s been a clear strategy since he joined, apart from buying the LSE. He’s got his work cut out.”

…Regulators appreciate that buying and selling big blocks of shares comes with a risk of nimbler rivals sniffing out trades. “It’s quite clear that the caps are going to kill off dark trading in a lot of stocks, but we might see systematic internalizers and other ad hoc ways of trading starting to flourish,” said Niki Beattie, a consultant who runs Market Structure Partners in London. “The world is evolving into something different, and we do not know what it is.”

In a world turned upside down by new rules on how research is paid for, this is one model — known as “alpha capture” — that is gaining traction. It’s a tool for investors to help establish the value of ideas now that banks are about to be barred from bundling research costs into trading commissions…. “It’s evolved from nothing to being a globally accepted practice,” said Niki Beattie, a Merrill Lynch alumna who now heads adviser Market Structure Partners. “With MIFID II, clients will have to be more discerning about the information they take, how they use it and how they pay for it.”

…With the uncertainty out of the way, both exchanges can now focus on the future. “Brexit hangs like a shadow over everything,” says Niki Beattie, chief executive of Market Structure Partners, a consultancy. “But the big danger in these kinds of deals is that if you take your eye off the ball, nobody is developing a strategy outside it.” Those plans — and who develops them — are now moving to the top of the agenda for investors and analysts…

…His profile has been boosted by the ambition to link together flagship stock markets in London and Frankfurt with combined market capitalization of some $30 billion, while LSE shares have rallied nearly five-fold during his time as chief. “He already had a high profile, but more amongst the City,” said Niki Beattie, a Merrill Lynch alumna who now heads adviser Market Structure Partners. “Now, he has more of a political profile.” …

…Beattie told Markets Media: “More and more of the buyside are doing their own research and spending money on new data sets, such as social media or satellite imagery. There is a mismatch between what the sellside is producing and what the buyside wants.” The study found that 56% of fund managers interviewed are now paying fees for other third-party data sets…