Headlands Technologies
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | July 2009 |
| Founder | Matt Andresen, Jason Lehman, Neil Fitzpatrick |
| Headquarters | Chicago , United States |
Area served | United States, Netherlands, Singapore |
| Products | Quantitative proprietary trading in equities, options, futures, fixed income |
Number of employees | 10 |
Headlands Technologies (commonly known as Headlands) is a U.S.-based quantitative proprietary trading firm with its main office located in Chicago. The company also maintains additional branches in New York, Austin, Amsterdam, and Singapore.
Background
Headlands was launched in July 2009 by three former top executives from the trading division of Citadel Group. The founding team consisted of Matt Andresen, previously co-CEO at Citadel Securities, Jason Lehman, who led Citadel's global options desk, and Neil Fitzpatrick, former COO of Citadel Execution Services. They obtained outside capital to initiate a quantitative trading business concentrating on equities, options, and futures through algorithmic strategies, utilizing solely proprietary funds. The enterprise began with a workforce of ten.
In 2013, Headlands Tech Global Markets LLC was formed to engage in trading Fixed income instruments. By the following year, the firm had broadened its activities to include municipal bond trading, focusing mainly on transactions below $100,000. By 2019, the company was conducting over 1,000 trades each day, managing an inventory worth $400 million and employing technology capable of valuing more than 700,000 bonds.
In March 2021, Toronto-Dominion Bank acquired Headlands Tech Global Markets LLC to strengthen its automated fixed-income trading capabilities; the deal was finalized in July 2021.
By 2022, Headlands had expanded its Chicago presence significantly by leasing additional floors within downtown office buildings, tripling its office space.
In January 2025, U.S. federal prosecutors charged former trader Richard Ho with misappropriating proprietary trading information from Headlands and collaborating with Tower Research Capital.