ELECTRONIC TRADING

Reuters has signed a definitive agreement to acquire U.K.-based AVT Technologies, a foreign exchange trading systems vendor. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to be finalized later this month. Concurrent with the acquisition, Reuters is establishing a Reuters Automated Dealing Technologies business unit, which will consist of the 100 staff joining from AVT Technologies and additional Reuters staff. This new unit will be responsible for the strategy and delivery of Reuters automated dealing and limit order management offerings.

SunGard Trading Systems, an operating group of SunGard (NYSE:SDS), has launched MatchMaker -- a real-time interface liking SunGard's Brass order management system with Omgeo's Oasys Direct trade allocation and acceptance platform. MatchMaker now receives block level trade details and allocation information directly from Omgeo's Oasys Direct and matches the data against corresponding block-trade information from Brass; the Brass system then sends the matched trades to the broker-dealer's back office for settlement processing.

NeoNet, an independent software vendor specializing in providing front-end access to financial exchanges, has signed a pact with Eze Castle Software. The deal calls for Eze Castle, an order management software provider, to offer its clients an electronic gateway to a range of European equities exchanges via NeoNet's front-end workstation software. NeoNet currently offers front-end connectivity to nearly all of the major European exchanges, including stock markets in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Milan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen and Oslo.