Virtu considers potential sale of agency brokerage and technology division

Virtu Financial is weighing a sale of its agency brokerage and technology division, a move that could reshape one of Wall Street’s most prominent electronic trading firms. The unit could attract bids in the range of $3.5 billion to $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s a remarkable return on a business Virtu assembled largely through its 2019 acquisition of Investment Technology Group (ITG), which cost approximately $1 billion in cash. What Virtu is actually selling The division in question handles agency brokerage, meaning it executes trades on behalf of institutional clients rather than trading with the firm’s own capital. It also encompasses the technology platforms and analytics tools that came with the ITG deal, which closed on March 1, 2019. More recently, Virtu doubled down on this side of the business by launching Virtu Technology Solutions (VTS) in March 2025. VTS was designed to package the firm’s technology capabilities and sell them to external sell-side brokers, essentially turning internal tools into a revenue-generating product line. Why sell a growing business Virtu wants to pour more resources into what it does best: high-frequency market...