NEW YORK - Instinet Incorporated, owned by Nomura Group, said co-CEO Anthony Abenante will step down and Fumiki Kondo will assume sole leadership of the firm.

Abenante was Managing Director of U.S. Equity and Global Program Sales and Trading at Nomura Securities International for four years before he took on the Instinet role. Prior to that, Instinet said he spent 10 years at Investment Technology Group in several senior management roles.

He had been a member of ITG's trading strategies group, where according to a biographical sketch on the Instinet website, he played an "integral role in developing ITG's algorithmic business line". Before that, Mr. Abenante was at Morgan Stanley in the information systems group.

There had been news reports of an imminent shakeup at Instinet prior to the statement.

Instinet has been trying to weather a period of torpid trading. In a statement a month ago on its recent results, Abenante had referred to the markets as "challenging".

"With the low market volumes that persist globally, nearly all institutions, regardless of region, are interested first and foremost in finding quality liquidity," he said at the time.