Bond trading firm Millennium Advisors has opened an office in Singapore, its first location in Asia, to tap strong growth in electronic trading in the region.
It wants to take advantage of increased use of electronic trading by fixed-income investors in Asia and a global jump in activity trading US dollar investment-grade bonds, said Caroline Serdarevic, head of UK and Singapore and global head of sales. “Global demand for our core product, and market structure more broadly, has been moving towards us,” she said.
Millennium started trading in 2010 as an early mover on electronic trading in fixed-income markets. It specialises in "odd lots" and small orders, but increasingly handles bigger orders and says it has an edge from its combination of technology and traders, and is now one of the most active bond trading platforms.
It began trading from Singapore on July 3 and has seen an immediate impact in executed activity and inquiries. Trade count with counterparties in Asia Pacific in July was up 50% from the average of the previous three months and trade volume was up 83%, the firm said.
The office has three people. It has rehired Sean Wang, who used to work for Millennium in Charlotte, North Carolina, but left the firm when he returned to Singapore three years ago. Arushi Bhansali has relocated from Charlotte and Gabriele Paoli has relocated from London.
Millennium started trading with Asian counterparties in 2017. “We’ve long recognised the importance of the APAC account base. In the last five years we’ve been growing our presence in the region from a London base, and we knew in due course we needed to be in the region,” Serdarevic told IFR.
“We are a technology-driven firm but are big believers in the importance of human relationships and building partnerships with our counterparties, so it was just a matter of time.
“The landscape has also changed hugely in the region in the last two years. The algo desks at larger banks and alternative market-makers are deploying more resource to the region, and as liquidity has improved we’ve started to see a trend toward earlier execution, into the Asia morning.”
A recent Coalition Greenwich report estimated 56% of the Asian buyside used electronic trading in 2023, up from 36% a decade earlier.
Century up
Millennium now has 100 staff globally, including 20 people in London.
The firm was founded in Charlotte by Mike Healy and Dave Chappelle, who broke out on their own after building and running fixed-income trading platforms at Bank of America. Healy was at BofA for 25 years and started its odd lot electronic trading business in 2002 and by 2006 it was the leading odd lot market-maker in corporate bonds.
Millennium has about 1,500 counterparties, including asset managers, private banks, hedge funds, wealthy individuals and retail clients, including trades for just one bond and odd lots up to big orders.
It opened an office in London in 2014 and in Chicago in 2022. From its core US corporate bond trading it has expanded into emerging markets, municipal bond trading, agency bonds, ETF trading, mortgage-backed securities and CD trading.
“One of our firm’s key objectives has been to diversify our revenue base globally and by asset class, so we’ve been walking this path for some time,” said Serdarevic. She joined the firm in 2016 after previously working at RBS, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and a fintech start-up.
Healy is CEO of Millennium’s US broker-dealer, and helps set long-term strategy and is involved with technology and risk management, and trades a corporate bond book. Chappelle advises on strategy. Its chief executive is Laurent Paulhac, who joined the firm in July 2020 after previously founding and running several start-ups.