On the first anniversary of its launch in London, the head of Bats Europe, the low-cost share-trading platform, believes that he is on course to win a fifth of all dealing in heavily traded equities.

Mark Hemsley has set the ambitious target of gaining 20 per cent of all trade in London in the top 350 stocks and a 10 per cent market share across Europe by the end of next year. If Bats’ chief executive achieves this, the fledgeling business will be profitable.

The forecast does not rely on any improvement in the levels of business on exchanges or the departure of any more rival platforms in the intervening period. Of the four new dealing platforms that have set up to challenge the near-monopoly of the London Stock Exchange, one, Turquoise, is set to disappear by the end of this year (it is in advanced merger talks with the LSE) and some observers expect more consolidation.

“There’s still a substantial amount of trading we believe we can attract,” he said. “We have gone from nought to 4 per cent [in Europe] in one year.” Its market share in London recently has been running at more than 8 per cent of the FTSE 100 and about 5 per cent of the FTSE 250.

Bats is an offshoot of Bats Global Markets, of Kansas City, which has captured 10 per cent of US equities trading since its launch in 2005. Both run on a low-cost, low-overheads model. The London operation, in the old Robert Fleming City offices in Copthall Avenue, has only 30 employees. Even including American staff, the group workforce is less than 100. Marketing of the platform has been limited to London, Paris and Amsterdam, but it plans to target Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and eventually Spain.

Mr Hemsley was previously managing director and chief information officer at Euronext Liffe, the futures exchange, and has worked for Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.

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