Virtu reveals share sale details

High-frequency trading business Virtu has announced details of its impending share sale.

The company revealed that it is to become a publicly listed company and aims to raise as much as $100 million (£60 million) as a result.

Virtu announced profits of $184 million (£111 million) in 2013, which was a 108 per cent increase from 2012 as high-frequency trading became more popular in the last 12 months.

The firm stated that it will be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol VIRT and in its regulatory finding, the company said it has only recorded a single day of trading losses over the course of the past five years.

Virtu said: "We stand ready, at any time, to buy or sell a broad range of securities, and we generate revenue by buying and selling large volumes of securities and other financial instruments and earning small amounts of money based on the difference between what buyers are willing to pay and what sellers are willing to accept, which we refer to as 'bid/ask spreads'."

Firm's dealings

It was added by the firm that it has provided quotes to buyers and sellers in more than 10,000 securities, as well as other financial instruments on more than 210 unique exchanges, markets and liquidity pools in 30 countries.

Virtu also argued that it serves an important role in maintaining and improving the overall health and efficiency of the global capital markets due to it "continuously posting bids and offers for securities and other financial instruments and thereby providing to market participants an efficient means to transfer risk".

Former New York Mercantile Exchange head Vincent Viola is the head of the company and he has plenty of experience in the financial market since leaving the US Army almost 30 years ago.

According to data released by the World Federation of Exchanges, the number of equity shares that were traded through an electronic order book grew at a compound annual rate of 13.7 per cent since 2004. This was a rise from approximately 3.5 billion shares in 2004 to approximately 9.8 billion shares in 2012.

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