Tower Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: TWGP) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of CastlePoint Holdings, Ltd. (NASDAQ: CPHL) in a transaction valued at $531 million based on Tower’s current market price. Tower announced a definitive agreement to acquire CastlePoint on August 5, 2008. All closing conditions have been met.
With the close of the transaction, CastlePoint shares (NASDAQ: CPHL) will be delisted from the NASDAQ.
Thursday, 5 February 2009
Tuesday, 3 February 2009
CSC DealRoom
Corporation Service Company® (CSC), has released the CSC DealRoom. The CSC DealRoom enables clients to receive documents from CSC electronically into a customizable deal workspace, so they can collaborate with outside counsel, and manage, organize and close deals more efficiently.
The introduction of CSC's DealRoom follows the company's successful implementation of comprehensive matter management and electronic billing systems that provide collaboration tools and automatic integration of electronic service of process delivery.
The CSC DealRoom, available exclusively from CSC, delivers electronic images of client documents directly into a virtual deal workspace helping clients to manage and organize every phase of a deal from marketing to due diligence to closing. It is a highly secure environment set-up to manage critical data, tasks, and deal documents, and enables collaboration with associated parties using role-based access. Each CSC DealRoom has fully customized workflows, checklists, task assignments with alerts, along with comprehensive reporting and audit tools. The result is a streamlined and collaborative platform designed to help mitigate risk and reduce cost for clients throughout the deal process.
"CSC DealRoom is a logical extension of the corporate and legal services we perform for our clients," said Bruce R. Winn, President and Chief Executive Officer of CSC. "This expansion further demonstrates the winning combination of innovative technology and superior service that are the hallmark of CSC, and reflects our strategy to invest in services that address our clients' most critical business requirements over the long term."
The new CSC DealRoom ascribes to the emerging technology approach referred to as software as a service (SaaS) which delivers solutions via a network, most often the Web, which shifts the burden of getting and keeping an enterprise application up and running from the client to the vendor. This approach translates to several advantages for clients: faster implementation, easier access to current technology, and lower costs due to little to no need for IT involvement, expense, or resources.
The introduction of CSC's DealRoom follows the company's successful implementation of comprehensive matter management and electronic billing systems that provide collaboration tools and automatic integration of electronic service of process delivery.
The CSC DealRoom, available exclusively from CSC, delivers electronic images of client documents directly into a virtual deal workspace helping clients to manage and organize every phase of a deal from marketing to due diligence to closing. It is a highly secure environment set-up to manage critical data, tasks, and deal documents, and enables collaboration with associated parties using role-based access. Each CSC DealRoom has fully customized workflows, checklists, task assignments with alerts, along with comprehensive reporting and audit tools. The result is a streamlined and collaborative platform designed to help mitigate risk and reduce cost for clients throughout the deal process.
"CSC DealRoom is a logical extension of the corporate and legal services we perform for our clients," said Bruce R. Winn, President and Chief Executive Officer of CSC. "This expansion further demonstrates the winning combination of innovative technology and superior service that are the hallmark of CSC, and reflects our strategy to invest in services that address our clients' most critical business requirements over the long term."
The new CSC DealRoom ascribes to the emerging technology approach referred to as software as a service (SaaS) which delivers solutions via a network, most often the Web, which shifts the burden of getting and keeping an enterprise application up and running from the client to the vendor. This approach translates to several advantages for clients: faster implementation, easier access to current technology, and lower costs due to little to no need for IT involvement, expense, or resources.
Monday, 2 February 2009
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing In Belgian Win
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, the global leader in securities servicing,has been appointed by KBC, a Belgian bancassurance group, to provide U.S. equity trading services.
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing will provide KBC with seamless trading across the complete lifecycle of a U.S equity trade, from order capture to execution in the market, affirmation/confirmation, clearing, settlement and reporting via the company's BNY ExecutionPlus platform.
BNY ExecutionPlus fully integrates BNY Mellon's market-leading, custody, clearing and settlement services with Pershing LLC's extensive global execution capabilities, allowing financial institutions based outside of the United States to execute and settle bank custody trades in the U.S. equity markets via a single instruction to purchase or sell. Pershing is a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.
BNY ExecutionPlus also provides clients with the ability to utilise Pershing's online brokerage platform, NetExchange Pro(R). NetExchange Pro enables investment professionals at financial organizations to access account information, quotes, investment research, news and other third-party content.
Luc Aspeslagh, Managing Director Securities Services at KBC Securities, said: "BNY ExecutionPlus allows us to address the operational risk associated with trading in the U.S. markets and by streamlining our trading process we in turn can provide our clients with the best possible services. It also offers clear economic advantages, as payment of a single, bundled commission that covers all transaction processing costs will clearly benefit our bottom line."
Nadine Chakar, Executive Vice-President and Head of Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, said: "BNY Mellon's world-class integrated custody capabilities and the power of Pershing's global execution and clearing platform together deliver a single, dynamic solution to those financial organisations seeking efficient and accurate technology to optimise the management of their investments. We are delighted to be working in partnership with KBC and we look forward to assisting them in implementing further efficiencies within their investment processes."
Frank La Salla, Managing Director of the global securities services group at Pershing, said: "This appointment further demonstrates The Bank of New York Mellon's ability to provide financial institutions with a comprehensive and seamless offering to help them meet their sophisticated trading and settlement needs. We remain fully committed to developing and delivering market-leading solutions to our clients as they look to grow their businesses in today's challenging capital markets environment."
BNY Mellon Asset Servicing will provide KBC with seamless trading across the complete lifecycle of a U.S equity trade, from order capture to execution in the market, affirmation/confirmation, clearing, settlement and reporting via the company's BNY ExecutionPlus platform.
BNY ExecutionPlus fully integrates BNY Mellon's market-leading, custody, clearing and settlement services with Pershing LLC's extensive global execution capabilities, allowing financial institutions based outside of the United States to execute and settle bank custody trades in the U.S. equity markets via a single instruction to purchase or sell. Pershing is a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation.
BNY ExecutionPlus also provides clients with the ability to utilise Pershing's online brokerage platform, NetExchange Pro(R). NetExchange Pro enables investment professionals at financial organizations to access account information, quotes, investment research, news and other third-party content.
Luc Aspeslagh, Managing Director Securities Services at KBC Securities, said: "BNY ExecutionPlus allows us to address the operational risk associated with trading in the U.S. markets and by streamlining our trading process we in turn can provide our clients with the best possible services. It also offers clear economic advantages, as payment of a single, bundled commission that covers all transaction processing costs will clearly benefit our bottom line."
Nadine Chakar, Executive Vice-President and Head of Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) at BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, said: "BNY Mellon's world-class integrated custody capabilities and the power of Pershing's global execution and clearing platform together deliver a single, dynamic solution to those financial organisations seeking efficient and accurate technology to optimise the management of their investments. We are delighted to be working in partnership with KBC and we look forward to assisting them in implementing further efficiencies within their investment processes."
Frank La Salla, Managing Director of the global securities services group at Pershing, said: "This appointment further demonstrates The Bank of New York Mellon's ability to provide financial institutions with a comprehensive and seamless offering to help them meet their sophisticated trading and settlement needs. We remain fully committed to developing and delivering market-leading solutions to our clients as they look to grow their businesses in today's challenging capital markets environment."
Forex Capital Markets LLC (www.fxcm.com) today announced it has reached an agreement to acquire certain assets of the U.S. retail forex business of Hotspot FXr LLC to further expand the liquidity offered via its Active Trader platform. Hotspot FXr's affiliate, Hotspot FXi LLC, will continue to offer its platform for institutional FX trading.
"Hotspot FXr is a major innovator in the field of fair and transparent pricing. While the retail clients of Hotspot FXr will be moving to a new platform, they will continue to receive pricing which is free of influences from the dealing desk," said Drew Niv, CEO of Forex Capital Markets (FXCM). "Every price is derived from a major bank and every trade is offset. FXCM and Hotspot FXr share the same fair pricing principles."
Hotspot FXr's retail forex business is a perfect fit with FXCM's focus on expanding its Active Trader Group. FXCM's Active Trader platform was developed to meet the needs of non-institutional traders exceeding $10 million in monthly volume. The Active Trader platform is revolutionary in the retail forex space, offering pricing transparency, with a five level display of market depth.
The deep liquidity available through FXCM's Active Trader platform derives from the firm's long standing liquidity relationships with many of the world's largest banks and financial institutions. The platform provides agency (no dealing desk) execution where all trades are offset, with FXCM taking no market risk. This enables FXCM to focus on obtaining competitive pricing and providing the best technology to its clients.
"Hotspot FXr is a major innovator in the field of fair and transparent pricing. While the retail clients of Hotspot FXr will be moving to a new platform, they will continue to receive pricing which is free of influences from the dealing desk," said Drew Niv, CEO of Forex Capital Markets (FXCM). "Every price is derived from a major bank and every trade is offset. FXCM and Hotspot FXr share the same fair pricing principles."
Hotspot FXr's retail forex business is a perfect fit with FXCM's focus on expanding its Active Trader Group. FXCM's Active Trader platform was developed to meet the needs of non-institutional traders exceeding $10 million in monthly volume. The Active Trader platform is revolutionary in the retail forex space, offering pricing transparency, with a five level display of market depth.
The deep liquidity available through FXCM's Active Trader platform derives from the firm's long standing liquidity relationships with many of the world's largest banks and financial institutions. The platform provides agency (no dealing desk) execution where all trades are offset, with FXCM taking no market risk. This enables FXCM to focus on obtaining competitive pricing and providing the best technology to its clients.
Dubai Completes Migration to CME Globex
CME Group, and the Dubai Mercantile Exchange Limited (DME), an energy futures and commodities exchange based in the Middle East, announced today that they have successfully completed the migration of DME's contracts to the CME Globex(R) electronic trading platform.
The successful transition enables the world's three crude oil benchmarks - WTI, Brent and Oman - to trade on the same platform alongside CME Group products across all major asset classes. The DME contracts will be accessible for trading beginning 18:00 EST on Sunday, February 1, equivalent to 03:00 Dubai and 07:00 Singapore on Monday, February 2. Clearing will continue to process through the NYMEX clearing house until it is integrated with CME Clearing.
Welcoming the move, Ahmad Sharaf, Chairman, DME, commented, "This migration is not only a strong step forward in the growth of the DME's existing contracts but is also a mark of the success that the DME has achieved in building robust contracts recognized and traded by leading industry participants. The visibility and reach offered by the CME Globex platform will dramatically increase the global exposure of both the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract, and the DME Oman Crude Oil Financial Contract, which also successfully migrated to the CME Globex platform on February 2."
"The transition of DME's contracts to CME Globex further represents the benefits of merging the NYMEX businesses with CME Group, not only increasing the distribution of the contracts to a global set of hedgers and investors, but also opening up new possibilities for arbitrage and other sophisticated trading strategies on a single, virtually 24-hour platform," said Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman. "These benefits are available to established users of our markets as well as the new participants we welcome along with the DME contracts."
DME CEO Thomas Leaver added, "The DME Crude Oil Futures Contract is recognized as the crude oil benchmark for the East of Suez region, and as such is increasingly used for efficient price risk management as well as affording arbitrage opportunities with the other crude oil pricing regions. This next step in our development will open the contract to a new and diverse set of market participants, and we will continue to work with our core stakeholders, strategic partners, and existing customers and traders to build on this momentum throughout 2009 to identify avenues of growth that will drive the DME to new heights."
The successful transition enables the world's three crude oil benchmarks - WTI, Brent and Oman - to trade on the same platform alongside CME Group products across all major asset classes. The DME contracts will be accessible for trading beginning 18:00 EST on Sunday, February 1, equivalent to 03:00 Dubai and 07:00 Singapore on Monday, February 2. Clearing will continue to process through the NYMEX clearing house until it is integrated with CME Clearing.
Welcoming the move, Ahmad Sharaf, Chairman, DME, commented, "This migration is not only a strong step forward in the growth of the DME's existing contracts but is also a mark of the success that the DME has achieved in building robust contracts recognized and traded by leading industry participants. The visibility and reach offered by the CME Globex platform will dramatically increase the global exposure of both the DME Oman Crude Oil Futures Contract, and the DME Oman Crude Oil Financial Contract, which also successfully migrated to the CME Globex platform on February 2."
"The transition of DME's contracts to CME Globex further represents the benefits of merging the NYMEX businesses with CME Group, not only increasing the distribution of the contracts to a global set of hedgers and investors, but also opening up new possibilities for arbitrage and other sophisticated trading strategies on a single, virtually 24-hour platform," said Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman. "These benefits are available to established users of our markets as well as the new participants we welcome along with the DME contracts."
DME CEO Thomas Leaver added, "The DME Crude Oil Futures Contract is recognized as the crude oil benchmark for the East of Suez region, and as such is increasingly used for efficient price risk management as well as affording arbitrage opportunities with the other crude oil pricing regions. This next step in our development will open the contract to a new and diverse set of market participants, and we will continue to work with our core stakeholders, strategic partners, and existing customers and traders to build on this momentum throughout 2009 to identify avenues of growth that will drive the DME to new heights."
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