R.J. O'Brien & Associates

R.J. O’Brien & Associates, LLC (RJO) is the oldest independent futures commission merchant (FCM) in the United States, and is considered one of the last boutique firms in the industry. It is a privately held business majority owned by the O'Brien family of Chicago. The firm facilitates 24-hour execution and clearing on all the major futures exchanges worldwide. In 2014, RJO celebrated its 100th year in business.
The company's headquarters are in Chicago, with offices and affiliates in New York, Des Moines, Houston, Canada, the UK, France, UAE, Hong Kong and Singapore.
RJO services a global network of approximately 300 introducing brokers, along with some of the world’s largest financial, industrial and agricultural institutions. Its RJO Futures division specializes in trading access for individual investors. RJO provides clearing services for more than 80,000 client accounts.
As of April 2024, the firm reported client assets of $5.7 billion and net capital of $368 million.
== Background ==
RJO’s roots extend to 1914, when John V. McCarthy, an Irish immigrant, started off selling butter and eggs from a cart that he pushed around Chicago. John V. McCarthy & Co. helped create the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (now CME Group) as a founding member when it transformed from the Chicago Butter and Egg Board into CME in 1919. RJO is the only CME founding member still in existence.
The firm has been through four generations of family. In 1947, Robert O’Brien Sr. married Geraldine McCarthy, John’s daughter, and soon after joined the family business. He started by visiting farmers and egg producers across the country, and he became president of the firm in 1959. John McCarthy died in 1963, and in 1969 the firm became R.J. O’Brien & Associates.
In 1967, O'Brien was elected chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Two sons of Robert J. O’Brien joined the family firm and took leadership roles. Robert J. O’Brien, Jr. was named president in 1975. John W. O’Brien was named chief executive officer in 1986. RJO's CEO, Gerald F. Corcoran, took the reins in 2000, and added the role of chairman in 2007.
Over the years, RJO diversified from being an introducing broker’s FCM into a full service firm offering a broad suite of services to retail and institutional customers. Much of its technology was built and developed in-house. RJO built its own electronic trading, brokerage and risk management technology and was one of the first firms to develop order routing. Even during a harsh environment in the industry, RJO grew dramatically into the largest independent futures brokerage, with 550 employees and more than 80,000 client accounts. 
The firm has managed a variety of challenges over the years, including a drought, wars, market crashes, and even an outbreak of mad cow disease shortly before Christmas. RJO’s industry milestones have included taking delivery of the industry’s first futures contract based on a live animal and championing the rule change at CME to allow women on the trading floor (22-year-old Sandra Stephens, an RJO employee, became the first woman to work on the CME floor in 1966). 
In 2007, the firm sold a majority stake to the investment firms Spectrum Equity Investors and Technology Crossover Ventures for an undisclosed sum, while the O’Brien family retained a minority ownership. In December 2010, RJO was back in the hands of the O’Brien family after the two private equity firms opted to sell back the control acquired in 2007. It remains majority-owned by the O’Brien family.
When MF Global declared bankruptcy in October 2011, RJO inherited a large number of its customers as regulators scrambled to move those customer accounts. RJO's segregated customer funds, which is the amount of customer funds held by the FCM, jumped almost $800 million to $3.3 billion, after MF Global fell, an increase of 31 percent. 
RJO has been aggressive in building its business since, even as many firms were trimming down amid the crush of low to negative interest rates and increased regulatory burdens following the introduction of rules from the Dodd-Frank Act. In 2015, the company expanded its operations in the UK and Europe when it purchased London-based The Kyte Group, one of the largest clearing firms in Europe. It renamed the affiliate R.J. O'Brien Limited, which in 2024 had 100 employees and serves as the hub for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA region). RJO also continued to grow its Asian operations, and expanded in the FX space.
== 100th Anniversary ==
In 2014 at the Futures Industry Association's International Conference in Boca Raton, FL, RJO was honored an award for “100 years of excellence” in the futures industry. 
The full-length version of the 100th anniversary video, which debuted October 17, 2014, can be seen on RJO's web site here. The video plus a brief write-up can be found on the JLN web site here.
== Products and Services ==
RJO facilitates 24-hour execution and clearing on every major futures exchange in the world. It operates on an agency-only model, and does not participate in proprietary trading.
The firm is an exchange member of:
* Bitnomial, Inc.
* Cboe Futures LLC
* Chicago Board of Trade
* Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.
* Commodity Exchange Inc.
* Dubai Mercantile Exchange Limited
* ICE Abu Dhabi (IFAD)
* ICE Endex (NDEX)
* ICE Futures US
* ICE Futures Europe
* New York Mercantile Exchange
The firm's Canadian affiliate, RJO Canada, is an exchange member of the Montreal Exchange.
The company's London-based affiliate, R.J. O'Brien Limited (RJO Limited) was approved as a Category 2 clearing member of the London Metal Exchange (LME) on July 23 and went live on August 19, 2015.
More introducing brokers are associated with RJO than any other FCM in the industry. RJO hosts an annual conference for introducing brokers, a semi-annual broker training program and quarterly regional meetings. 
RJO provides anonymous access to the marketplace. Institutional and commercial clients can access RJO’s order desk around the clock to handle specialized orders and strategies. RJO also offers these clients customized back-office services. The firm has teams that specialize in grains, interest rates, metals and softs markets. 
RJO offers proprietary market insights which include daily updates and trade ideas as well as long-term price outlooks in the futures, cash and OTC markets.
The RJO Futures division offers individual investors online trading platforms and broker support.
RJO's cash management affiliate, OASIS Investment Strategies, in September of 2017 opened its global cash, collateral and margin management service to all types of financial institutions with excess cash on deposit.
On January 8, 2019 the company announced that its affiliate R.J. O’Brien Financial had launched an over-the-counter (OTC) Agricultural Structured Products Group designed for commercial agricultural firms around the world. The bilateral OTC initiative uses a proprietary software platform developed by the team's financial engineers to analyze client needs and then generate customized hedging strategies. The team is led by Melisa Culbertson, executive director and senior vice president, OTC Structured Products.
On Aug. 6, 2020, RJO announced that its affiliate RJO MENA had just acquired Lombard Forte Securities Limited, a Dubai-based interdealer broker specializing in cash equities, exchange-traded funds, equity derivatives, fixed income and structured products for clients globally. Dubai is now a major hub for the firm, and the acquisition laid the foundation for significant recent growth into these additional asset classes globally across the firm.
On Sept. 21, 2022, RJO announced that its London-based affiliate, RJO Limited, had hired a new, highly experienced five-person metals team co-led by metals market veterans Bradley Marchant and Steven Bingley. The team will provide institutional clients around the world with trade execution and clearing services, specializing in the the London Metal Exchange and CME Group.
== Key People ==
* Gerald Corcoran, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
* James Gabriele, Group Chief Financial Officer
* Ryan Gillmore, Chief Information Officer
* Christopher Bove, Chief Compliance Officer
* Melissa Zierk, Managing Director, General Counsel
* Dan Staniford, President and Chief Sales Officer
* Brad Giemza, Global Chief Risk Officer
* Terry Gilhooly, Global Chief Operating Officer
== Office Locations ==
North America
222 South Riverside Plaza, Suite 1200, Chicago, IL, 60606
1700-110 Yonge St., Toronto, ON. M5C 1T4, Canada
Europe
100 Cheapside, London, EC2V 6DT
== Registration ==
*RJ OBRIEN ASSOCIATES LLC - NFA ID: 0000187
== References ==
Category:Brokerages
Category:Futures Commission Merchants
Category:R.J. O'Brien & Associates
Category:Agency Brokers