The largest US public exchange has bought a stake in a platform for private placements, saying it will bring greater transparency and efficiency to the process.
NYSE Euronext (NYX) has entered a strategic partnership with ACE – a transaction management platform for private placements of equity, debt and other securities – in which the partners establish an independent technology backbone for new issuances of private securities, with the goal of bringing greater transparency.
Under the terms of the arrangement, NYSE Euronext has acquired a minority ownership position in ACE, financial terms were not disclosed..
ACE provides investment banks and other placement agents with transaction management and marketing tools for new issuances of private securities. It also provides institutional investors, family offices and other accredited investors with a single, centralized platform for identifying and reviewing private investment opportunities.
ACE is focused on primary offerings and all offerings listed on ACE are managed by SEC-registered broker-dealers, which is essential to maintaining process integrity and regulatory oversight for the benefit of investors.
"The partnership with ACE is a strategic extension of our institutional capital formation expertise in the public market," said Scott Cutler, NYSE Euronext’s head of global listings. "Our goal is to bring greater efficiencies and transparency to the institutional private market, just as we have brought to the public market."
With over $1 trillion in annual offerings, the US market for private placements is a large and increasingly attractive opportunity for both issuers and investors.
Market efficiency, however, has been limited due to the labor-intensive, one-to-one marketing efforts conducted as a result of regulations and the absence of a centralized infrastructure. The ACE platform was designed to address these challenges.
