Virtu Financial has announced the launch of its new business unit, dedicated to capital market clients. The unit — Virtu Capital Markets (VCM) — will provide ATM services to global public issuers aiming to raise equity capital in the primary markets, as well as provide corporate stock buy-back services to issuers and sponsors in the secondary market.
“Our Capital Markets offering is consistent with our strategy of leveraging our core market structure expertise, global technology platform, and distribution network to deliver efficient and transparent products and solutions to the market,” said CEO Douglas Cifu in a press release. “In the same way that our entry into the Outsourced Trading space was a natural extension of our native capabilities to provide more services to our client base, Virtu Capital Markets likewise enables us to provide efficiency enhancing services to corporate issuers and sponsors.”
In addition, the company revealed that Jeffrey Lumby has come on board as head of VCM. Before joining Virtu, he spent 18 years at Cantor Fitzgerald as head of Equity Capital Markets. During his time at Cantor, Lumby built and oversaw the market-leading ATM team.
“The evolution of the ATM product has put an emphasis on access to liquidity and, given Virtu’s strengths, it is a natural fit to leverage its best-in-class technology and global liquidity profile to offer ATM services,” said Lumby. “The ATM structure is one of the most efficient mechanisms for public companies seeking to raise equity capital, and we will be able to drive additional efficiencies into the structure at Virtu.”
Joshua Feldman is also joining Virtu Capital Markets as managing director. He has spent more than 15 years working on ATM offerings, and was previously a senior member of the Equity Capital Markets team at Cantor Fitzgerald as well.