State Street Agrees to Buy Pulse Trading

Boston-based State Street Corp announced today it has agreed to purchase brokerage Pulse Trading.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2011, pending regulatory and other closing conditions, according to a press release from State Street.

The transaction includes the acquisition of Pulse Trading’s institutional equities business and approximately 40 employees in Boston, New York, St. Louis and San Francisco.

“We look forward to joining State Street where we will continue bringing best-in-class trading technology to our institutional clients,” said Christian Dubois, managing partner at Pulse Trading in a press release. “The combination of our products with State Street’s scale and institutional client base will allow us to expand our reach.”

Terms of the deal are being kept confidential, a source close to the deal told Traders Magazine.

Pulse Trading was founded in 2000 and made its mark trading over-the-counter securities on alternative trading Systems and electronic communications networks. Pulse also operates BlockCross, its block trading ATS that utilizes buyside blotter scraping technology and integrates both sellside and dark algo liquidity.

State Street Corporation serves institutional investors, including investment servicing, investment management and investment research and trading. It has $2.1 trillion in assets under management as of June 30.