MarketAxess

MarketAxess Holdings Inc.

Company type	Public
Industry	Financial technology
Founded	2000 (2000)
Founder	Richard McVey
Headquarters	New York , United States
Area served	Americas, Europe, Latin America, Asia
Key people	Chris Concannon (CEO), Richard McVey (Executive Chairman)
Products	Electronic trading platform for institutional credit markets, market data provision, post-trade processing
Number of employees	744

MarketAxess Holdings Inc. is a global financial technology firm that operates an electronic trading platform specializing in institutional credit markets. It offers services including market data provision and post-trade processing. The platform enables the trading of credit products such as corporate bonds and various fixed income securities, catering primarily to institutional investors and broker-dealers.

Established in 2000 by Richard McVey, who currently holds the position of Executive Chairman, MarketAxess is based in New York and employs 744 individuals while serving a client base spanning the Americas, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The company dominates electronic trading of US corporate bonds, accounting for 85% of investment-grade and 84% of high-yield debt traded electronically on its platform, which amounts to approximately 20% of total US corporate bond trading volume. As of October 2020, MarketAxess held a market valuation of $20.43 billion.

History

The concept for MarketAxess was initially introduced in 1999 by McVey during J.P. Morgan's Lab Morgan initiative, designed to explore web-based technologies. In 2000, he launched MarketAxess as a standalone entity with $24 million secured from industry participants including Bear Stearns. By November of that year, the platform commenced trading investment-grade corporate bonds and provided access to new issue offerings and research.

In 2001, MarketAxess expanded its capabilities by acquiring Trading Edge Inc., the owner of BondLink, an early innovator in online bond trading. The company went public in 2004 with an initial share price of $11.

Growth continued through strategic collaborations and acquisitions: in 2012, MarketAxess formed a partnership with BlackRock’s Aladdin platform and introduced Open Trading, an all-to-all trading marketplace. The acquisition of London-based Trax occurred in 2013, followed by the extension of the Open Trading collaboration with BlackRock into European credit markets in 2015 and further into Asia by 2018, concentrating on US dollar-denominated corporate and sovereign bonds.

MarketAxess entered the Treasury market in 2019 by acquiring the LiquidityEdge platform. Its municipal bond footprint was expanded through the purchase of MuniBrokers in 2020, alongside an agreement to acquire the Regulatory Reporting Hub within the same year.

In April 2022, MarketAxess partnered with MSCI to enhance its fixed income indices, portfolio construction tools, and ESG data integration, thereby improving its analytics and product suite.

The company also actively engages in regulatory efforts: in May 2022, it joined APARMA to contribute to shaping trade reporting standards and fostering communication with regulators. By June 2022, MarketAxess collaborated with Tradeweb and Bloomberg to submit a joint bid for providing a consolidated tape for EU bond pricing under ESMA’s procurement initiative—aimed at boosting transparency and data quality within capital markets.

In September 2022, MarketAxess deepened its relationship with Broadway Technologies by incorporating request-for-quote workflows into its US Treasury trading platform.

Leadership changes took place in April 2023 when Chris Concannon, who had served as president and COO since 2019, assumed the role of CEO. Richard McVey transitioned to executive chairman at that time.