BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe Set to Merge, Combined Operations to be Located at Equinix's LD4 in Slough

Following its signing of an agreement to acquire Chi-X Europe back in February, Bats Global Markets has today announced that Bats Europe and Chi-X Europe are to merge and the combined operations will be located at the Equinix Slough LD4 data centre. This move will require the relocation of Bats Europe’s integrated and dark books from the London Docklands (LHC) data centre to LD4 and the migration of Chi-X Europe’s integrated and dark books to Bats Europe technology.

According to the soon to be combined execution venues, all platforms will have disaster recovery facilities at Equinix Park Royal data centre (LD3). Bats Europe will also implement a high bandwidth, low latency network link between the LHC and LD4 data centres, which will allow participants to access both trading platforms via a single network interface.

Bats Europe will also implement a point of presence (PoP) at Interxion, Hanbury Street, which will offer network connectivity to all order books for a fee to be announced at a later date.

The move also confirms what Atrium Network’s Des Peck predicted when speaking to A-Team Insight back when the acquisition was first announced. Peck noted back in February: “I would say that the probability (assuming the deal goes through) is that Bats/Chi-X ends up at LD4. Reason: the customer base in LD4 (and now LD5) is going to act as its own anchor, and is somewhat larger than the customer base that are in the LHC (London Hosting Centre aka Greenwich View).”

He added: “I suspect that the clients located in LHC are a subset of those already in LD4/5 and the draw of LD4/5 and its own customer base is pulling in other venues, such as PlusMarkets. Chi-X/Bats will want to continue to take advantage of the ‘geographical dislocation’ from the London Stock Exchange [whose data centre is in the City of London] and NYSE Euronext [whose data centre is in Basildon, 30 or so miles in the opposite direction, east of London] that Chi-X enjoys today.”