TD Equity Options Inc., the Chicago-based market-making unit of Toronto-based TD Bank Financial Group, is closing its doors after its Canadian parent failed to find a buyer for the business.
About 80 workers at the company’s 230 S. LaSalle St. location are affected. The decision to close the unit, which TD Bank acquired in 2001, comes as the bank turns its focus in the U.S. on “client-driven” businesses including fixed income, origination, sales and trading and foreign exchange, a spokesman said.
Decisions about job eliminations and relocations will be made over the course of the next year, the spokesman said.
Market makers stand ready to buy when investors want to sell and sell when investors want to buy, and are key to providing liquidity to markets like the Chicago Board Options Exchange. As options trading volume has skyrocketed and moved from floor-based arenas to electronic screens, market makers have come under intense competitive pressure, forcing many in recent years to close their doors.
Options market making “is core to what we do, but we’ve made the strategic decision to move it up to Toronto instead of running it out of Chicago,” the spokesman says. The bank had earlier this year tried to sell the unit, but was unsuccessful, he says.
Moving the technology and the jobs from Chicago to Toronto will be a year-long process.
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