Automated Trading Desk merges with Chicago firm

Friday, July 12, 2002

Mount Pleasant-based Automated Trading Desk, which uses sophisticated computer programs to buy and sell millions of shares of stock each day, has merged with a Chicago firm in a move that will add smaller investors to its client base.

Terms of the financial arrangement with Chicago Securities Group were not disclosed.

CSG, a specialist firm on the Chicago Stock Exchange, trades more than 250 stocks, executing orders for major retail brokerage firms and mutual fund managers. Up until now, ATD has limited its clients to big institutional investors such as pension funds. “In essence the merger puts us up into a new space,” said Steve Swanson, president and CEO of ATD.

CSG, which is now a subsidiary of the newly formed Automated Trading Desk LLC, was drawn to the deal because of the access it gains to ATD’s proprietary trading technology.

Tom Lavery, president of CSG, said, “Our customers have been requesting this capability for some time, and we are now meeting their request.”

Started by a pair of college professors in 1988, ATD has developed computer programs that capture and instantly analyze vast amounts of market data to predict short-term price movements in individual stocks. As of May, the company’s trading activity accounted for roughly 4 percent of the Nasdaq’s daily volume.

ATD, which has 52 employees at its Houston Northcutt Boulevard trading center, plans to move into a new $32 million headquarters off Johnnie Dodds Boulevard in September.