It had been quite some time since I had spoken with Mark Ayzenberg of Beacon and although I had tried to connect at E-World, the Beacon stand – like many others – was constantly busy. However, we finally managed a call recently to find out how and what Beacon was up to in the energy and commodities space. It seems quite a lot as Mark told me that Beacon has almost doubled its number of clients and partners in the space over the last two years and now has more than sixty, and seems set to extend that further this year as activity levels remain high. “We’re proud to announce partnerships with Trayport Joule, Trading Technologies, WebICE, and Trayport, enhancing our industry presence and capabilities in Europe,” he told me commenting on its partnering activities. Some of the activity is originating with hedge funds who Mark says have returned to energy and commodities in some numbers recently from the cross-asset space. The focus of many of these funds in power and gas and primarily trading financially and via OTC derivatives, he told me. Beacon had done well in this segment he said. It had completed a couple of implementations recently… continue reading