Incapital, based in Chicago and Boca Raton, Florida, was founded by Tom Ricketts in 1999. San Francisco-based 280 CapMarkets was co-founded by technologists and bond veterans including Gurinder Ahluwalia and David Rudd in 2016.
"We founded Incapital in 1999 to break down the barriers many investors and issuers faced when trying to access the full potential of the fixed income markets, and later market-linked securities," Ricketts, who will be chairman of the new firm, recalled Thursday.
"It was not a level playing field then, and while it has improved over the years thanks to the emergence of new technologies and market entrants, we believe improvement needs to accelerate for all market participants," Ricketts said in the announcement.
The merger of Incapital and 280 CapMarkets is "highly strategic and complementary, as together we seek to drive transformation in the fixed income markets," according to Incapital CEO John DesPrez, who will be InspereX CEO.
CapMarkets CEO Ahluwalia will be vice chairman of InspereX, while Rudd, CapMarkets president, will maintain that title at the new firm. The combined firm will have a staff of about 200 people spread across primary offices in Boca Raton, Chicago, New York City and San Francisco, along with other regional locations.
Its business strategy will "combine Incapital's market knowledge, diverse products, strong distribution relationships earned over 20+ years, and capital strength with the power of 280 CapMarkets' leading-edge technologies," including BondNav, a cloud-native bond aggregation platform, the companies said.
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