Instinet has offloaded its ProTrader assets, acquired in 2001 for $150 million, to Zone Trading Partners for $7.75 million.
Instinet had acquired ProTrader to provide advanced trading technologies and electronic brokerage services primarily to professional non-institutional traders, active fund managers, direct access brokers and hedge funds who used the Instinet trading platform.
At the time of the transaction, ProTrader's proprietary trading business was spun off into two independent operations, namely Zone Trading Partners and Zone Equity Partners.
Under the new deal, all previous obligations between Instinet and Zone for trader clearing services have been set aside.
Instinet First VP Bob Schulz will become the company's new president in the fall, and at about the same time the Instinet information technology team of 20 staff that currently supports the Gr8Trade system will transfer to Zone. All of this team currently works for Instinet in Austin, Texas, except for Schulz who will relocate from New York to Austin.