Eurex, the top exchange in Europe, launched a fully electronic subsidiary in America this year, though with disappointing results so far.
So Mr. Richards, 30, returned to the city in 2000 and rejoined Cantor Fitzgerald, this time working for eSpeed, its electronic subsidiary.
"They weren't stuck up in any way," said Melissa Jenner, a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald and its electronic subsidiaries, eSpeed and TradeSpark.
These include CantorUSA, the disaster Web site for Cantor families that was up and running the day after the attack, and eSpeed.com, an electronic training subsidiary.
Last April, Microsoft committed to invest more than $600 million in Barnes & Noble's electronic books subsidiary, in a deal that ensures a source of electronic books for Windows devices.
The British media company Reuters said it had decided to proceed with an initial sale of shares in Instinet, its electronic trading subsidiary, although it did not specify the size or a date of the proposed offering.
At end of the April, Paramus, N.J.-based toy giant Toys 'R' Us toy had teamed up with Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture capital company Benchmark Capital to establish an electronic retailing subsidiary called Toysrus.com.
Ecommerce giant eBay has been reaching big milestones with its mobile apps, and apparently PayPal, its electronic payments subsidiary, is striking a chord with mobile users around the globe as well.
The Swiss exchange and virt-x, its London-based electronic-trading subsidiary for blue chips, handle about 7% of Europe's equity trading.
Federated operates more than 400 department stores in 33 states and also operates Fingerhut, Bloomingdale's by Mail, Macy's by Mail and macys.com catalog and electronic commerce subsidiaries.
