7 January 2019, Paris & Hong Kong: Horizon Software (Horizon), the world’s leading provider of electronic trading and algorithmic technology, has delivered another excellent year. The past 12 months have seen the company significantly expand its client base, go through a successful MBO, open a North American office, make an influential addition to its advisory board and win several awards.
The company’s major news of the year came in June with the announcement that European Private Equity Firm Capzanine invested in Horizon, becoming a majority shareholder alongside CEO Sylvain Thieullent and Horizon’s management team. The move represented a major step forward in Horizon’s global growth, with Capzanine looking to support its continued expansion.
Sylvain Thieullent, CEO of Horizon, commented: “It’s been a fantastic year for us in every respect. We’ve had our plates full in the best way possible with building our client base, growing our team with strategic new hires, innovating and broadening our offering and of course undergoing an MBO to support future growth. Multiple industry award wins and shortlistings are of course a welcome bonus and provide the whole team with a real sense of satisfaction that the industry and clients recognise our endeavours!”
In November the company appointed Keith Todd CBE, a global technology business veteran, as a member of its advisory board. On the hiring front, Horizon boosted its team with the addition of Francis Leclerc, head of North America, bringing 20 years of investment banking experience to Horizon.
Early this year Horizon announced support for the cryptocurrency market, providing users with the option to trade bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies, including Ether, Ripple and Litecoin. Additionally, the first few months of 2018 brought major new clients in the Asia Pacific market, including Shenyin Wanguo Fortune Investment Limited, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City Securities and Holly Futures, one of the top futures companies in China.
Thieullent continued: “Looking ahead to 2019, we aim to consolidate our already-significant APAC presence and continue growing our North American office with the support of our excellent global team. That said, our main mission remains the same – to further expand our worldwide network of satisfied clients and partners. I am of course extremely proud of what we have achieved to date but it’s this ambition that got us to where we are today.”
Horizon also continued with significant awards recognition and success, winning ‘Multi-Asset Trading System of the Year’ at the FOW and Global Investor Asia Capital Market Awards, ‘Best Sell-Side EMS’ at the Intelligent Trading Technology Awards and ‘Best Trading System’ in the Bobsguide Software Rankings. These accompanied shortlistings from the Technical Analyst Awards as ‘Best Trading System’, from the FOW International Awards in the ‘Sell-Side Trading Systems’ category and from the TradingTech Awards Europe as ‘Best Sell-Side EMS’ and ‘Best Sell-Side OMS’.
Horizon has been empowering capital market players for over two decades by building powerful algorithmic technology into its electronic trading platform and offering trading opportunities through direct connectivity to more than 80 exchanges worldwide. Horizon enables clients to quickly create, test and implement automated trading strategies in real-time, in line with its ‘Trade Your Way’ philosophy. Its platform can be easily integrated with rich APIs and allows proprietary strategies to be built while keeping traders’ code confidential.
