New York and London - Portware has announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire the technology and analytical assets of Aritas Group, Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Aritas' technology assets are highly complementary and add advanced artificial intelligence and commission optimization tools to Portware's core offerings," said Alfred Eskandar, CEO of Portware. "This is a natural extension of our broker-neutral trading solutions, and allows us to partner with the entire broker community to maximize the benefit of these advanced analytics."

Eskandar continued, "Our goal is to empower traders to analyze, communicate and execute their investment ideas in an automated way. This acquisition allows us to offer any firm, regardless of size, an extraordinary level of automation and choice in their trading workflows. Clients can direct order flow to multiple brokers, improve execution quality, and reduce trading costs while delivering consistent results across multiple strategies."

"We're excited to join forces with Portware to unlock the value we have created in our technology assets," said Jay Biancamano, Aritas' Executive Chairman. "Only an open, broker-neutral provider of trading solutions can fully deliver this value to our customers, and Portware is the global leader, with a proven ability to deliver technology-driven value."

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012. The acquisition does not include the Aritas broker/dealer or the Aritas Block Market. These assets will remain with Aritas Group, Inc. Broadhaven Capital Partners served as financial advisor and Hogan Lovells served as legal counsel to Aritas. Morgan Lewis served as legal counsel to Portware.