With its proposed acquisition of ICAP’s hybrid voice brokering business, Tullet Prebon showed that it is willing to double down in non-electronic brokering. With greater percentages of trades moving completely to electronic trading platforms and bypassing human assisted brokering, margins in traditional voice brokering are being negatively affected.
Nonetheless, with the deal, Tullet Prebon is set to become by far the largest interdealer voice broker in the world and the potential of cost effective synergies to handle profit contraction taking place. Even as electronic trading has increased, voice brokering remains an integral part of the trading world ... (read more)