ITG to Acquire OMS Leader Macgregor

The biggest news coming from ITG recently is the acquisition of Macgregor. Macgregor is a leading provider of trade order management technology. Acquiring Macgregor is a significant step in our corporate growth strategy. Our customers have stated that the integration of execution and order management systems is a key priority for them, and we are proud of this groundbreaking partnership to meet this customer need.

The acquisition will yield immediate benefits to our business by providing Macgregor customers with accessibility to ITG crossing facilities, algorithmic trading strategies and pre- and post-trade analytics. Macgregor’s premier order management system (OMS) will allow ITG to move deeper into our institutional clients’ trading operations in a mission critical, technology driven role. Macgregor will be able to leverage its existing strengths to provide customers with an expanded product offering. With these expanded capabilities, no one in the electronic trading field will come close to the breadth, depth and scale of the complete ITG offering.

The acquisition of Macgregor fits into the broader company strategies we have been working toward all year.

- We continue to diversify across the trading continuum and offer our customers best in class offerings. The integrated ITG-Macgregor order and execution management system is the crux of our strategy to expand our partnership with clients by providing them with comprehensive solutions across the trading spectrum.

- Customers can integrate Macgregor’s OMS with ITG’s front-end systems and analytical tools and still trade through any broker and venue of their choice. This is consistent with ITG’s long history of providing anonymous and confidential trading solutions that are broker-neutral.

- We remain committed to building ITG’s brand awareness with institutions by expanding and deepening our client relationships. The combined product offering will help ITG to be more strongly positioned to attract new customers, including the growing hedge fund market, and to develop new multi-asset class products.

- We strive to maintain our competitive differentiation in the marketplace, positioning ITG as the leader in equity trading and transaction research. The integration of Macgregor’s order management system with ITG’s execution management system and analytical tools clearly positions ITG as the leading provider of “best-execution order management” systems.

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Securities Industry News: By Jeffrey Kutler, July 13, 2005
The transaction will likely shake up the fragmented OMS market populated by a handful of mostly privately held software companies. While integration between OMS and order execution is increasingly in demand, particularly among hedge funds and other high frequency or algorithmic traders, those connections are necessarily at arms length, with generic interfaces.