Turquoise says gaining market share in UK stocks

By Daisy Ku

LONDON (Reuters) - Turquoise, the new share trading platform set up by investment banks, has gained over 5 percent intraday market share in some British stocks two weeks after its first trade.

The London-based European cash equities venue, which started trading five stocks each from Britain and Germany on August 15, extended its services to 1,266 stocks across 13 European markets on Friday, up from 65 stocks the day before.

"At little after nine this morning we've already done as much trading as we did yesterday. We're well on our way to do a lot of trade," Chief Executive Eli Lederman told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Lederman expects the platform, which will step up its marketing efforts in the week of September 22 in a "formal launch", to gain a slice of 5 percent of the overall market trading in "a couple of months".

Turquoise is one of a number of alternative trading venues that have sprung up in the wake of the new European Union financial markets legislation, known as MiFID, putting pressure on traditional bourses to cut fees.

Rival exchange Nasdaq OMX (NDAQ.O) will kick off an alternative pan-European market on September 26, while U.S. peer BATS plans to start in Europe in early November.

Lederman expects the market share of existing stock exchanges to halve in a year to 18 months' time.

Turquoise attracted between 5 percent and 20 percent of trading in some 17 London-listed stocks on Friday, including Ukrainian iron ore miner Ferrexpo (FXPO.L) and travel group TUI Travel (TT.L), which is in talks with Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) and Thomas Cook (TCG.L) over a potential three-way merger of airlines.