Spanish multilateral trading facility platform PAVE brought to a halt

LONDON | PAVE Platform on Wednesday announced the suspension of its plans for an ultra-fast marketplace focusing on Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American listed equities and ETFs. The Spanish equity market is one of the few major markets in Europe where deregulation and increased competition have yet to arrive and the Barcelona-based project’s aim was to bring in competition. The lack of capital resources, though, has forced it to admit defeat, if only temporarily.

The Spanish MTF initiative had been conceived in August 2010 by financial executive Javier Tordable, and pursued different strategies to gain market share in the Iberian trading community for equities. However, the very challenging market and harsh financial environment in the EU, especially in Spain, have weakened the support from both international and domestic partners that PAVE would have needed to succeed. With the Spanish banks and brokers hit particularly hard under the current economic conditions, the development of the platform has been brought to a halt.

“We still fully believe in the potential of the Iberian and LatAm markets, the initial inspiration for PAVE’s conception, nonetheless we had to make the difficult but realistic decision put the project on hold,” Javier Tordable said.

PAVE had been raised with private capital and was based in Barcelona with operations in Madrid and London, following the example of the international alternative platforms established in Europe since May 2007 under the MiFID legal framework, which already have approximately 50% of the market share of FTSE in London or 30% of German DAX and French CAC.