Investment Technology Group, Inc. was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

-based multinational agency

broker A broker is a person or firm who arranges transactions between a buyer and a seller for a commission when the deal is executed. A broker who also acts as a seller or as a buyer becomes a principal party to the deal. Neither role should be confu ...

age and

financial market A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial markets ...

s technology firm aimed at a

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

and

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

clientele. One of the first suppliers of

electronic trading In finance, an electronic trading platform also known as an online trading platform, is a computer software program that can be used to place orders for financial products over a network with a financial intermediary. Various financial products c ...

services, ITG launched the industry’s second anonymous electronic trade matching system, POSIT, in 1987 (

Instinet Instinet is an institutional, agency-model broker that also serves as the independent equity trading arm of its parent, Nomura Group. It executes trades for asset management firms, hedge funds, insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds. ...

Cross was launched in 1986). ITG has since expanded its business to include tools for portfolio management, pre-trade analysis,

order management An order management system, or OMS, is a computer software system used in a number of industries for order entry and processing. Electronic commerce and catalogers Orders can be received from businesses, consumers, or a mix of both, depending on th ...

, trade execution, and post-trade evaluation. ITG is headquartered in

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and has offices in locations including

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Los Angeles, Toronto, Chicago, London,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Hong Kong and Singapore.

History

ITG was founded in 1987 as a division of

Jefferies Jefferies is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alan Jefferies (born 1957), Australian writer * Annalee Jefferies (born 1954), American actress * Chris Jefferies (born 1980), American basketball player * Cindy Jefferies, Englis ...

to provide automated equity trading to

institutional investor An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked co ...

s. That year, the company introduced POSIT, an anonymous electronic trade matching system, in conjunction with

Barra Barra (; gd, Barraigh or ; sco, Barra) is an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, and the second southernmost inhabited island there, after the adjacent island of Vatersay to which it is connected by a short causeway. The island is na ...

. In 1990, ITG launched QuantEX, a trading system for institutional traders integrating analytics, routing, and trade management. ITG began to provide clients with pre- and post-trade tools and analytics in 1992. ITG became a

publicly traded company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

in 1994, listed on

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

. The ITG Australia office opened in 1997, giving regional investors POSIT equity crossing. The firm expanded into Europe in 1998. In 1999, ITG completed its spin-off from Jefferies, giving it full independence. In 2000, the company’s Canada office opened. In 2002, ITG moved into the

market by acquiring Hoenig, a provider of trade execution and

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

services to alternative

investment fund An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages inc ...

s. The firm then opened an office in Hong Kong. ITG completed its purchase of Radical Corporation, a provider of direct access trading to the institutional brokerage and hedge fund community, in 2004. The firm then opened a Japan office in 2005. The company moved to increase its

transaction cost In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market. Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike produ ...

analysis offering when it acquired Plexus Group from

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

in 2006. That same year, ITG acquired Macgregor, a provider of trade

order management system An order management system, or OMS, is a computer software system used in a number of industries for order entry and processing. Electronic commerce and catalogers Orders can be received from businesses, consumers, or a mix of both, depending on th ...

s, for $230 million. In 2007, it acquired RedSky Financial, a developer of

futures Futures may mean: Finance *Futures contract, a tradable financial derivatives contract *Futures exchange, a financial market where futures contracts are traded * ''Futures'' (magazine), an American finance magazine Music * ''Futures'' (album), a ...

and

options Option or Options may refer to: Computing *Option key, a key on Apple computer keyboards *Option type, a polymorphic data type in programming languages * Command-line option, an optional parameter to a command *OPTIONS, an HTTP request method ...

trading technology. In 2007 the company came under pressure from

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

D. E. Shaw to either sell off some of its assets or initiate a

share buyback Share repurchase, also known as share buyback or stock buyback, is the re-acquisition by a company of its own shares. It represents an alternate and more flexible way (relative to dividends) of returning money to shareholders. When used in coor ...

. By February 2008, Shaw had reduced its stake, citing satisfaction with ITG's RedSky purchase and an announced $50 million stock repurchase program. In 2010, ITG spun off Plexus Plan Sponsor Group, the division which serviced institutional asset owners. This group became privately held and was renamed Zeno Consulting Group. On 1 March 2019 Virtu Financial completed the acquisition of ITG.

Offerings

ITG's offerings span the following capabilities: * Portfolio Management – tools to assist portfolio managers in optimizing investment performance as well as maintaining

compliance Compliance can mean: Healthcare * Compliance (medicine), a patient's (or doctor's) adherence to a recommended course of treatment * Compliance (physiology), the tendency of a hollow organ to resist recoil toward its original dimensions (this is a ...

with global regulatory, client and firm mandates. * Pre-Trade – tools to manage trading

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environme ...

, increase efficiency, and improve performance. * Trade – electronic trading services which include broker-neutral, multi-asset execution management systems (EMS) and

s (OMS),

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

and routers, POSIT crossing, FIX connectivity, and traditional desk services for the trading of single stocks, lists and programs, international securities, and specialized

services. * Post-Trade – post-trade processing tools for trade matching, settlement notification and clearing and analysis tools for trading cost evaluation. *Trading Research - Transaction cost analysis and consulting. *Investment Research - Fundamental, data-driven equity research. *Market Research - Healthcare and telecommunications primary research. * POSIT Alert – tool that alerts traders to block crossing opportunities and delivers them directly to desktops from order flow in POSIT and ITG Algorithms.

References

External links

Official website
{{Finance links historical , name = Investment Technology Group , sec_cik = 0000920424 Financial services companies established in 1987 Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Brokerage firms Financial services companies of the United States Companies based in New York City American corporate subsidiaries 2019 mergers and acquisitions