Tibra Capital (Tibra) is an Australia

proprietary trading Proprietary trading (also known as prop trading) occurs when a trader trades stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, their derivatives, or other financial instruments with the firm's own money (instead of using customer funds) to make a profit ...

firm headquartered in Austinmer,

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. It has additional offices in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Background

Tibra was founded in January 2006 near Sydney by Dinesh Bhandari, a former trader at

Optiver Optiver Holding B.V. is a proprietary trading firm and market maker for various exchange-listed financial instruments. Its name derives from the Dutch , or " option trader". The company is privately owned. Optiver trades listed derivatives, cash ...

as well as six other employees who had also came from the same firm. Bhandari put in $2 million to start the new venture while the others contributed a total of $4 million. Originally the firm was called FTD meaning "Fuck the Directors" in reference to the employees split with management at Optiver Sydney. The firm quickly turned a profit with its first year making $14 million and its second year making $57 million. In 2011, co-founders Bhandari, Glenn Williamson stepped away from day-to-day involvement with the firm to pursue personal interests. Although the firm expanded quickly at the beginning, its business slowed for several years and the firm recorded losses. As a result, it streamlined the business and closed several overseas offices as well as cut staff numbers. Previously Tibra also had offices in Amsterdam, Dubai, Chicago, Hong Kong and Singapore. Tibra uses a mix of statistical and

fundamental analysis Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements (usually to analyze the business's assets, Liability (financial accounting), liabilities, and earnings); health; Competition, competitors and Ma ...

to drive its investment strategies in trading, arbitrage and market making.

Legal disputes

Optiver

Tibra's co-founders were previously employees of

. In June 2007, Optiver started proceeds against Tibra. In August 2009, Optiver launched a legal lawsuit Tibra and its co-founders. It alleged they had used confidential information for Tibra's computer trading programs. As a result, it was suing for copyright infringement and damage caused by using its software. It also was claiming a proportion of profits made by Tibra. ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...

'' stated Optiver launched the lawsuit after private investigators tracked emails sent by the co-founders on the day they left the firm. One claim states how, in 2004, Optiver employees wrote programming code to improve its trading speed from 80 milliseconds to between 0.5 and 1.5 milliseconds. In 2005, Optiver 'terminated' Bhandari's employment. By mid 2006, several Optiver employees quit to join Bhandari at Tibra. Optiver head, Robert Keldoulis was suspicious on how fast Tibra became a successful competitor. In January 2014, Tibra settled with Optiver with no admission of fault. Williamson was the sole co-founder who refused to sign a settlement agreement with Optiver stating even though the settlement is officially without admission of fault, accepting it can still be seen as a sign of guilt.

KCG Holdings

In November 2012, Tibra hired two former executives from GETCO Europe with one being considered a "game-changing" hire. In June 2013, GETCO and

Knight Capital Group The Knight Capital Group was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. With its high-frequency trading algorithms Knight was the largest trader in U.S. equitie ...

merged to form

KCG Holdings KCG Holdings, Inc. was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, high-frequency trading, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. The company was formed on July 1, 2013, upon the completion of the me ...

. KCG Holdings then launched a lawsuit against Tibra alleging "breach of certain intellectual property and confidentiality rights by an employee". In June 2015, Tibra and KCG Holdings agreed to an out-of-court settlement.

References

External links

* {{authority control 2006 establishments in Australia Financial derivative trading companies Financial services companies established in 2006 Companies based in New South Wales