Wiener Börse (or Vienna Stock Exchange) and Zurich-based boutique index provider Limeyard have formed a joint-venture to bolster their capabilities in the fast-growing and increasingly important indexing space.
Patrick Valovic, founder & managing partner of Limeyard.
The joint-venture will enable the two companies to benefit from significant synergies in developing and providing indices.
Limeyard provides leadership in index operations, research and product innovation, while Wiener Börse provides expertise in real-time index calculation and data dissemination.
Full details of the partnership have not been disclosed, although it is understood that Wiener Börse has acquired an equity stake in Limeyard.
The joint-venture will enable the firms to accelerate product development, with Limeyard expanding its suite of developed market market capitalisation and Swiss factor indices, and Wiener Börse enhancing its offering of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) indices.
The indices will be targeted at financial institutions creating index-linked investment products such as ETFs.
Limeyard’s suite of indices currently includes broad plain-vanilla offerings for US, European and Swiss equities, as well as a range of single factor indices based on the Swiss market targeting the low risk, momentum, quality, and value factors.
Wiener Börse currently maintains a range of bellwether Austrian, CEE and CIS indices. The Austrian Traded Index (ATX) is the exchange’s flagship index. The ATX measures the performance of the largest and most liquid blue-chip stocks listed on the exchange. It is the underlying index to ETFs including the db x-trackers ATX UCITS ETF (DR) (XB4A GY), the iShares ATX UCITS ETF (DE) (ATXEX GY) and the ComStage ATX UCITS ETF (CBATX GY).
Commenting on the new alliance, Patrick Valovic, Managing Partner & Founder of Limeyard (previously CFO of Stoxx) said, “Our ambition to compete with traditional index providers as a highly efficient, fully client-centric index provider makes our joint venture with the Vienna Stock Exchange (Wiener Börse) a perfect fit. While we continue to establish a global range of ‘plain-vanilla’ and innovative index offerings, we are now also able to offer our services in real time to a broader client base, together with the Vienna Stock Exchange (Wiener Börse). The close relationship between Limeyard and the Vienna Stock Exchange will further enable us to meet our clients’ needs in the best possible way.”
Christoph Boschan, CEO of the Wiener Börse, added, “With this move, we are pushing our growth strategy even further by diversifying our index business. Limeyard is the ideal partner for us thanks to their tech-driven innovation and agile approach to index calculation. Our customers will benefit from faster, automated services that have a high degree of reliability and a global scope. We’re happy to support the scaling-up of a thriving fintech such as Limeyard while also taking our index business to the next level. Working closely together will enable us to benefit from synergies in index innovation, calculation and development. And by calculating global indices in the future, we will increase our international visibility as a trading place.”