Five banks cut loose from Chi-X

JC Flowers will be the new owner of securities exchange Chi-X Australia.

Chi-X Global owned Chi-X Australia and the vendors are effectively the owners of the former. The seven vendors are Nomura's Instinet (the controlling interest) and minority owners UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, GETCO LLC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Quantlab Group LP.

Chi-X Australia chief, John Fildes told Fairfax Media he would be staying on as chief after the deal is finalised by the end of March.

"I am definitely staying here. I am very excited about it," he said. Fildes worked with JC Flowers managing director Thierry Porte as head of electronic trading at Morgan Stanley when Porte headed up its Japanese business.

"I think it is great for the company," Fildes said. "At a time when we have launched a series of new innovative platforms, including warrants and we will soon offer ETFs, JC Flowers has bought the company understanding our plans and wanting to back those and will want to grow the company even more aggressively."