Recently launched FX prime brokerage firm IS Prime’s business model was comprehensively proven yesterday when the firm was one of the only sellers of Swiss Francs in the FX market.
The company, which came to fruition as a new London-based prime brokerage division of Lord Stanley Fink’s alternative investment fund management company ISAM, today detailed to LeapRate that the reason why so many client losses in the industry were so pronounced yesterday was due to an absence of liquidity on the bid in EURCHF and USDCHF, meaning that clients could not close out positions. IS Prime was bid throughout the most volatile period of the day in both pairs.
As explained on the IS Prime website, clients benefit from the ability to match against the real interest of the funds’ internal order book. This pool of “no last look” liquidity is uniquely available through IS Prime.
The broker was a natural seller of Swiss Francs all day as a result of their relationship with the internal funds, which came into the day long. The senior management of the company also stated to LeapRate today that it understands that ISAM’s flagship Systematic fund had one of the best days of performance in its long trading history.
Jonathan Brewer, Managing Partner of IS Prime, commented “IS Prime is in a privileged position in that we are able to offer liquidity from primary bank liquidity providers, but we are also able to access the order book of ISAM’s funds. This enables us to really differentiate ourselves by offering unique pricing to our clients. The benefit of this unique pricing will never be more evident than it was yesterday.
Roy Sher, Managing Partner of ISAM, commented “The positioning of our funds will often be contrarian to the mainstream liquidity providers, which means that our order book is a very valuable asset to IS Prime and their clients. This is an example of the many synergies that are evident in our partnership.”
Photograph: Jonathan Brewer, Managing Partner of IS Prime