BSO Network Solutions

BSO Network Solutions

Michael Ourabah, a French entrepreneur and former telecom executive, founded BSO Network Solutions in 2003 with a focus on low-latency connectivity for financial markets. The firm began by providing network connectivity between London and Paris, expanding rapidly to connect major exchange hubs across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia. Its revenue comes from leasing fiber-optic lines, colocation space, and infrastructure-as-a-service to high-frequency trading firms, banks, and cloud providers. BSO's strategy centers on owning and operating a proprietary fiber network that interconnects over 45 financial exchanges worldwide, including the London Stock Exchange, Deutsche Börse, NASDAQ, and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The firm also partners with cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud to offer direct cloud connectivity from trading floors. Its asset mix is infrastructure-heavy — fiber routes, data centers, and hardware — and it does not operate as an asset manager deploying third-party capital. Named clients include large hedge funds and market makers such as Jane Street (per Waters Technology, 2023) and Virtu Financial (per the firm's website). BSO employs hundreds of engineers and network specialists across nine global offices. It does not manage or disclose AUM or capital deployment figures, as its business model is service- and lease-based, not investment-based. The firm has no known philanthropic foundation or operating companies beyond its core network business. In 2023, BSO launched a new low-latency route between New York and Chicago designed for co-located trading firms (per the firm, 2023). BSO's structural differentiator is its vertical integration as a network owner-operator rather than a traditional asset manager. It builds and maintains proprietary physical infrastructure — fiber lines, substations, and data-center enclosures — that financial firms lease to reduce latency. This operating-company posture places BSO in a distinct category: it competes with telecom carriers and data-center REITs, not with family offices or hedge funds.