Société Générale, HSBC, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), have joined the DirectBooks platform bringing the total to 19 global underwriters live on DirectBooks.
In 2021, DirectBooks reported more than 2,000 tranches announced on its platform across USD, EUR and GBP deals with an aggregate notional of over US$1.6 trillion. In addition, more than 150 institutional investors, including 16 of the top 20 global asset managers by AUM, joined the platform.
“DirectBooks is pleased to welcome these essential financial institutions to our growing community of underwriters,” said DirectBooks CEO, Rich Kerschner. “We look forward to working closely with Société Générale, HSBC and MUFG as we expand our coverage and services.”
“The evolution of financial markets technology is central to our strategy, as is collaboration with our clients,” said Eric Cherpion, managing director, global head of bond syndicate at Société Générale. “Joining a global platform like DirectBooks allows us to deliver extraordinary service to our clients and remain their underwriter of choice, whilst maintaining our commitment to technological innovation in the primary market.”
“We are always looking for ways to improve the new issue process to the benefit of investors and our Debt Capital Markets clients,” said Adam Bothamley, global co-head of DCM at HSBC. “As a result, we’re very pleased to be involved with a service designed to increase transparency and facilitate faster and more efficient communications with investors.”
“At MUFG, our goal is to offer clients the efficiency, accuracy and certainty needed to meet their needs in a rapidly changing financial and technological environment,” said Brian Cogliandro, managing director and deputy head of international capital markets and international head of syndicate at MUFG. “MUFG is committed to supporting our clients and the broader markets’ movement toward a more seamless fixed income new issuance experience through DirectBooks. We are very pleased to join the platform.”
DirectBooks is designed to streamline the communications workflows for underwriters and institutional investors the primary issuance process for fixed income. The platform recently rolled out emerging markets (EM) for LatAm and EMEA to complement the global investment grade (IG) offering. A phased rollout of orders and allocations functionality is occurring throughout early 2022, with high yield (HY) issuances coming later in the year.
By reducing manual tasks which add no value in the bond issuance and primary investment process, buy-side desks aim to win more time to focus on managing secondary market trading, more complex trades, and strategic developments on the desk.
©Markets Media Europe, 2022
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