Taps Industry Veteran to Head Sec. Lending Department and Co-Head Division
New York, NY, September 21, 2010 – TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, SIPC and NFA) today announced the hiring of Robert Sackett to start up and lead the securities lending department of, and co-head, its TradeStation Prime Services division.
“Securities lending services are a critical component of our plan to build a first-class prime brokerage offering to small and mid-sized hedge funds and other buy-side traders who can no longer receive important prime brokerage services directly from the large firms,” said Salomon Sredni, CEO of TradeStation Group, the parent company of TradeStation Securities. “We believe TradeStation’s position as a self-clearing broker-dealer serving this market allows it to offer a more compelling value proposition compared to other firms that cannot directly provide custody, clearing, settlement and securities lending and must instead rely on the large firms to which they introduce all of their accounts.”
“We believe Rob’s 15 years of experience and relationships in securities lending will allow TradeStation to compete effectively in a market that continues to see industry fragmentation and where small to mid-sized buy-side institutional traders continue to seek prime brokers capable of directly delivering to them basic, critical prime services,” added Lance Baraker, Senior Managing Director and co-head of TradeStation Prime Services.
Mr. Sackett is leaving his position of Managing Director at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. to join TradeStation Prime Services as Senior Managing Director and co-head of the division. He has over 15 years of securities lending experience at Citigroup and its predecessors, and has been a NYSE-approved Securities Lending Representative since 1995 and a NYSE-approved Securities Lending Supervisor since 2002. He is scheduled to begin his employment with TradeStation after the Thanksgiving holiday, following the expiration of his 75-day garden leave period with Citigroup. TradeStation Prime Services expects to begin offering securities lending services in the 2011 first quarter. For additional information about TradeStation Prime Services, please visit: http://www.tradestationprime.com/.
TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc., was founded to serve the needs of start-up to mid-sized hedge funds, registered investment advisers, professional traders and asset managers who need quality prime brokerage services, including execution and clearance, securities lending, capital introduction, and “incubation” services. Clients are offered electronic trading and decision-support platforms, including TradeStation, to analyze their trading strategies and automate or manually place their orders, and may avail themselves of the firm’s NYSE floor membership, which allows it to execute trades on behalf of clients on the NYSE floor as well as in other market centers from its NYSE floor booth/outsourced trading desk. TradeStation Prime Services is located at 400 Madison Avenue, New York, New York.
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About TradeStation Prime Services, a division of TradeStation Securities, Inc.
TradeStation Securities, Inc. (Member NYSE, FINRA, SIPC & NFA) is a licensed, self-clearing securities broker-dealer and a registered omnibus-clearing futures commission merchant, and has memberships or similar approved status (as well as direct connectivity for both market data and order execution) with BATS Z-Exchange, Boston Options Exchange, Chicago Board Options Exchange, Chicago Stock Exchange, EDGA Exchange, EDGX Exchange, International Securities Exchange, NASDAQ OMX BX, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, The NASDAQ Stock Market, NYSE Arca and NYSE Amex. For futures accounts, TradeStation connects directly (for both market data and order execution) with the CME Group, Eurex Group and ICE Group (U.S. and Europe) exchanges. TradeStation is a clearance member with DTCC and OCC for equities and options, serves its futures accounts on an omnibus clearance basis, and also introduces institutional equities accounts to J. P. Morgan Clearing Corp., as clearance agent. TradeStation Securities has offices in South Florida, New York, Chicago and Dallas, and an affiliated introducing broker (TradeStation Europe Limited) in London.
About TradeStation Group, Inc.
TradeStation Group, Inc. (NASDAQ GS: TRAD), through its principal operating subsidiary, TradeStation Securities, Inc., offers the TradeStation platform to the active trader and certain institutional trader markets. TradeStation is an electronic trading platform that offers state-of-the-art electronic order execution and enables clients to design, test, optimize, monitor and automate their own custom Equities, Options, Futures and Forex trading strategies. TradeStation Group’s other operating subsidiaries are TradeStation Technologies, Inc. and TradeStation Europe Limited.
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Forward-Looking Statements – Issues, Uncertainties and Risk Factors
This press release contains statements that are forward-looking and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. When used in this press release, the word “believe,” “expects,” “plan” and similar expressions, if and to the extent used, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based largely on current expectations and beliefs concerning future events that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the results herein suggested. Factors that may cause or contribute to the various potential differences include, but are not limited to, the company’s new “TradeStation Prime Services” division, generally, including the planned new securities lending department, turning out to be less profitable, less successful, and/or more costly than expected, or resulting in unanticipated claims or liabilities against the company, as a result of (1) Mr. Sackett’s employment, and/or the securities lending department he is expected to head, not beginning or working out as planned and expected, (2) unanticipated start-up or development costs and expenses that are not offset or exceeded by expected revenues as and when planned (or at all), (3) the TradeStation prime services offering generally, and securities lending services particularly, not growing in appeal to prime services clients to the extent the company believes they will, (4) the failure of the company to make timely and quality enhancements to its trading platform, or to offer alternative platforms, which are believed necessary to attract prime services clients to use TradeStation to execute and clear trades, (5) TradeStation’s size and balance sheet being unacceptably small to mid-size and larger prime services clients (which are part of the market segment the company intends to serve) and third-party providers of credit, funding and inventory required for a successful securities lending department, and (6) the general unpredictability of operating results for a start-up business division, particularly given TradeStation’s lack of experience in offering prime brokerage services generally and securities lending in particular.
Contact –
William P. Cahill
President & Chief Operating Officer
TradeStation Securities, Inc.
954-652-7852
