Blue Ocean Technologies (BOT) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) have formed a strategic partnership expanding the customer base of BOT’s trading platform, ATS, and the TSE.
The TSE has also made a 5% minority investment into Blue Ocean Technologies with the transaction expected to close next month.
BOT will be provided with transparent and efficient trading access in Japan by TSE, leveraging the stock exchanges’ expertise on Japanese market structure and regulation.
TSE stated that it intends to offer cross-border trading opportunities of Japanese equities to Blue Ocean ATS’ client base.
“Our partnership with the Tokyo Stock Exchange is both a strategic development for Blue Ocean and for all Japanese investors, providing them the opportunity to trade US stocks during their daytime hours,” said Brian Hyndman, president and chief executive of BOT.
“Furthermore, we are very excited to have a global capital markets leader like the TSE validate our business model with their investment, which will contribute to our overall business growth, technology and infrastructure development while providing new trading choices and transparency for local Japanese investors.”
The new alliance will allow Blue Ocean technologies to expand its Asia-Pacific footprint, as it enters the Japanese market for the first time. This will build upon BOT’s existing presence in other key APAC markets including South Korea and Hong Kong.
“Blue Ocean ATS is a unique and ambitious US equities trading venue operating in the Asian time zone, and we are looking forward to working with them,” said Hiroki Kawai, senior executive officer at TSE.
“We hope to expand the business and customer base of both Blue Ocean and TSE to provide a variety of investment opportunities to investors in both Japan and the US.”