US hedge fund DE Shaw has increased its stake in New York-based Investment Technology Group (ITG), in a move that will pile further pressure on the vendor to put itself up for sale.
According to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) DE Shaw now holds a 7.7% in ITG.
In June DE Shaw increased its stake in the business to 6.2%, making it the vendor's largest shareholder.
At the same time the hedge fund sent a letter to ITG, calling on the vendor's chief executive Robert Gasser to sell the company or initiate an "aggressive" share buyback programme. DE Shaw argued that ITG's stock was under-performing and failed to reflect the fair value of the company's global trading products and platforms.
Since then ITG has reported a rise in second quarter revenue but a small dip in Q2 net income. However the vendor has also talked up it business and said last week that its average daily trading volume soared in August, due to the volatile markets.
US trading volume was 5.7 billion shares and average daily volume (ADV) was 247 million shares during the month, compared to 3.3 billion shares and ADV of 142 million shares in August 2006, says ITG.