Automated Trading Desk celebrates opening of state-of-the-art headquarters

Mt. Pleasant, SC — October 30, 2002 — Automated Trading Desk (ATD), the pioneer of automated limit order trading technology, officially opened its 68,000 square foot headquarters. The opening featured appearances and addresses from the Honorable Harry M. Hallman, Mayor of Mount Pleasant, Senator W. Greg Ryberg (R) and Representative Harry B. Limehouse III (R).

Located at 11 eWall Street in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, ATD’s campus spans 16 acres with operations guarded by massive redundancy – duplicate communication feeds and power feeds. The communications infrastructure has the capacity to process 4 billion shares per day. In addition, the building has been constructed to withstand Hurricane winds with an impact rating of 135 miles as well as fires, power outages and seismic conditions.

“Over the last fourteen years, we have utilized our technology to navigate through the market chaos and our new facility and campus provides us with additional stability and redundancy to continue our focus on supporting customer needs,” said Steve Swanson, CEO and President of ATD. “ATD’s customers benefit through our technology which provides innovative solutions in a fragmented market offering execution at the lowest cost. Our state-of-the-art facility represents the foundation we are building on for our customers, employees and future growth.”

“Our new building and campus is intended to reinforce our unique research culture by fostering interaction among our employees and strengthen our technology,” said David Whitcomb, Founder and Chairman of ATD. “The new location will allow us to continue our growth for at least the next few decades.”

In his remarks, The Honorable Harry M. Hallman, Jr., Mayor of Mount Pleasant said, “ATD’s investment is an enormous vote of confidence in the Mount Pleasant area and we are confident that they will act as a magnet to attract additional high tech firms to our area.”

“I have visited all corners of South Carolina I will assure you that ATD is one of the most eye popping stories I have encountered in my trips across the state. After hearing of their past during my recent tour of ATD I believe what we see today is just the next step in what will be a long journey,” said The Honorable W. Greg Ryberg, State Senator South Carolina (R).

Cutting Edge Design and Infrastructure

The 11 eWall Street Campus spanning 16 acres and 68,000 square foot building were designed by Margaret Helfand Architects, a firm in New York City which served as chief design architect and McKellar and Associates, a firm in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the site’s executive architect.

Other features at 11 eWall Street include:
o 57 miles of Copper Data Cable that support ATD’s Data and Telecommunications Network.
o Nearly 100 tons of Hurricane Glass
o 55,000 square feet of Copper panel sheets on the roof, weighing 135,000 pounds or over 65 tons
o Eight high level switches are used for the network backbone, all are redundant and dual-homed for increased redundancy and fail-over
o 1,000 trees have been added to the campus

About Automated Trading Desk, LLC (ATD)

ATD is a trading-technology company created to develop systems and software for automated limit-order trading. Founded in 1988 and based in Mt. Pleasant, SC, ATD provides significant liquidity to the public markets through limit-order placements on its own behalf and on behalf of its institutional clients through its brokerage subsidiary ATD Brokerage Services, LLC, an NASD and SIPC member.

ATD’s proprietary expert system captures and analyzes vast amounts of market data, and through the use of algorithms, predicts very-short-term price movements in individual stocks. ATD’s technology prices, places, monitors, cancels and handles execution of orders. As of August 2002, the company accounts for approximately 4% of Nasdaq’s daily volume, and in April 2002 had its first 100 million-share day. For more information, please visit www.atdesk.com.

Contacts:

Frances Del Valle
Euro RSCG Middleberg on behalf of ATD
[email protected]
(212) 699-2755

Mary Waggoner
Euro RSCG Middleberg on behalf of ATD
[email protected]
(212) 699-2728