Japan's largest securities firm Nomura is to acquire agency broker Instinent from Silver Lake Partners in a $1 billion all cash transaction.
California-based private equity house Silver Lake paid $208 million for the New York-based broker in December last year. Since then, trading at the global brokerage has soared on the back of investor demand for sophisticated trading technologies and execution service capabilities.
With the acquisition of Instinet, Nomura Group will add advanced execution technologies to its research offering, and position itself to provide hedge funds, pension funds, and other institutional investors with higher value-added trading technologies and order execution services. In addition, Nomura will add Instinet’s global agency brokerage business with approximately 1500 clients worldwide and a presence in all major financial markets.
Instinet handled an average 189 million shares daily in the US during the second quarter, more than double a year earlier, while daily trading values in Europe reached $1.1 billion and $586 million in Asia Pacific.
The Japanese brokerage is understood to have seen off competition from Citigroup and State Street to clinch the deal.