Optiver provides liquidity as a global market maker. It trades its own money across major financial markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, and North America, dealing in stocks, bonds, and derivatives on more than 50 exchanges. Its product works through proprietary technology and trading algorithms that analyze market data to price instruments and execute trades quickly. By continuously offering to buy and sell at competitive prices, Optiver earns profits from the spread between bid and ask prices and helps ensure there is always a buyer or seller available for institutional clients such as banks, hedge funds, and pension funds. This approach contributes to market stability and efficiency. The company's differentiator is its use of advanced technology and proprietary trading strategies at a large global scale to provide reliable liquidity to professional market participants. The goal is to improve market liquidity and pricing while generating profits from market-making activities.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Founded
1986
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Tower Research hired an ex-equities portfolio manager to manage its risk. 4 hours ago A lot of people want to work in an electronic trading firm. Many of them are willing to work in a non-investment role to do so, but it's a rarer case for someone with a history in the front office to join the middle. Pierre Danilowiez, formerly of SocGen, has done just that to work for Tower Research. Danilowiez joined the firm's Amsterdam office as a senior risk manager. He was most recently head of investments for Arbra, a multi-family office. His LinkedIn states that the role involved asset allocation for the firm's various investment teams, and the development of the firm's risk framework, which would lend itself well to a pure risk role. His role also involved "directly managing $100M+ multi-asset portfolios," which seems much more front-office oriented. Before that, he was a trader for 15 years. He spent five years as a portfolio manager at asset manager Key Capital Partners, where he claims to have managed a €30m AUM strategy in equities. He also spent a decade at SocGen, where he was a VP in equity derivatives trading. Danilowiez is a Grande École mathematics and engineering graduate. French-educated equity derivatives specialists are highly sought after right now; In London, Optiver hired Barclays MD Arnaud Heckenroth as head of exotics business development, suggesting that there's further room for algo firms to expand in the already competitive world of equity derivatives. Tower seems to prefer hiring support staff to traders right now. In 2025 accounts for its UK entity filed with Companies House this week, the firm revealed that headcount in its 'trading' unit fell by 18 while headcount in 'support/management' rose by seven. Tower did not respond to a request for comment on whether it made any cuts, or whether any staff were reassigned from a trading role into support. Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you'd like to share? Contact: WhatsApp: http://wa.me/442079977910 (+44 20 7997 7910), Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, Signal: @AlexMcMurrayEFC.88 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email [email protected]. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate. The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits. Boost your career. Find thousands of job opportunities by signing up to eFinancialCareers today. Top Articles
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and Kaszek join A5X’s shareholder base in funding its Series D, securing the capital required for Brazil’s new derivatives exchange to launch and reach its breakeven
Brazilian derivatives exchange A5X has raised R$360 million in its fourth funding round from Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Kaszek, alongside XP exercising its purchase option. The round values the company at R$2.7 billion. A5X has now raised approximately R$730 million total. The funding round also includes repeat investments from market makers IMC, Jump Trading, Optiver, and XTX Markets, plus ABN Amro Clearing. The exchange, expected to begin operations in the second quarter of 2027, employs around 200 people, including 70 former B3 staff. It plans to offer dollar contracts, interest-rate derivatives, and ETFs at competitive prices. A5X will compete with B3, currently Brazil's only operating exchange, alongside upcoming rivals Base Exchange and CSD BR.
Optiver hired the ex-trader that led hedge fund Eisler Capital's international expansion. 2 hours ago Optiver is one of a wave of electronic trading firms that are on a growth tear. The Amsterdam-based firm has opened and expanded multiple offices in recent years, and just hired a London-based hedge fund alumnus who specializes in international buildouts. Alexis Le Montagner joined Optiver as a global strategy manager based in London this month. He spent the last 20 months at fintech Airwallex, where he led expansion efforts into France and Israel while also serving as chief of staff to CEO. Le Montagner also spent two years at now-defunct hedge fund Eisler Capital. He joined the fund as director of strategy and business management in London to work on expanding into new regions including Dubai, Jersey and Malta. He then took an on-site role in the fund's growing Paris office and scaled the team up to six portfolio managers. Le Montagner left in mid-2024, more than a year before Eisler's untimely collapse. His background before that was as a derivatives trader; he spent a decade with Commerzbank before getting an MBA and becoming a consultant with BCG. It's not clear whether Le Montagner will be working on similar international expansion efforts at Optiver, which did not respond to a request for comment. The firm has opened various new offices over the past few years. It revamped its London office in 2022, expanded its Chicago office in 2023, then opened a New York office last October. Earlier this year, it more than quadrupled the size of that new office in New York to 115k square feet; it's a similar amount of space to the firm's US headquarters in Chicago, which Optiver said in 2023 has room for nearly 600 people. Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you'd like to share? Contact: WhatsApp: http://wa.me/442079977910 (+44 20 7997 7910), Telegram: @AlexMcMurray, Signal: @AlexMcMurrayEFC.88 Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email [email protected]. Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: comments are moderated intermittently by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You must take sole responsibility for comments you post on this site. We will take reasonable steps to weed out anything that we consider to be offensive or inappropriate. The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits. Boost your career. Find thousands of job opportunities by signing up to eFinancialCareers today.
Optiver and Northpool today announced that Optiver has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Northpool, a European energy trading firm headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands.