T-Zero today announced that it has hired George Harrington as coo to expand its senior management team. Launched in the summer of 2005, T-Zero has gained strong momentum over the past year as an increasing number of dealers, buy-side market participants and prime brokers sign on for the service. Harrington joins at a time of phenomenal growth within the company, which has experienced a 338% growth rate in the second half of 2006 compared to the first have of the year.
“We are very pleased to have George join our company as we grow our business to the next level and explore new initiatives that take advantage of our expertise in trade processing,” said T-Zero president Mark Beeston, to whom Harrington reports. “George’s expertise in credit derivatives and financial markets will be a tremendous asset as we work with the industry to solve trade processing challenges.”
Harrington joins T-Zero in its New York office after spending more than two years at Thomson Trade Web where he most recently was product manager of its credit default swap index trading business. Harrington has expertise working with dealers and buy-side market participants and has experience working to develop and implement system enhancements. In addition, he has held senior roles as an analyst and accountant with various financial organizations since the launch of his career in 1994.
“This is truly an exciting time to join such a growing and dynamic company as T-Zero,” said Harrington. “As the credit derivatives market continues to evolve, market participants are increasingly seeking out solutions to their trade processing needs and to achieving straight through processing. T-Zero’s momentum in the market place reflects market participants’ strong attraction to its agnostic connectivity model, ease of implementation and ability to reduce operational risks. I believe our pace of adoption will continue to expand as market participants in the UK, Europe and North America seek out our solution.”
The outstanding notional value of credit derivatives grew 52% in the first six months of 2006 to $26 trillion, according to the International Swaps & Derivatives Association’s Mid-Year 2006 Market Survey. The annualized growth rate for credit derivatives as of mid year was 109%, surpassing last year’s record expansion.
T-Zero, whose approach to electronic connectivity and messaging addresses the inefficiencies cited by regulators over the past year, is increasingly growing its user base to include more inter-dealer brokers, buy-side firms, prime brokers and service providers. T-Zero now has over 160 buy-side firms committed and 11 dealers live on its platform.
