Silver Lake Partners, the Silicon Valley private equity firm that acquired a majority of New York-based agency brokerage Instinet late last year, may be preparing to make a quick exit from the investment.
The possible sale of Instinet had been floated in news reports this week that said Silver Lake had retained Evercore Partners as its deal adviser. “Silver Lake Partners and Instinet management have been approached about potentially selling the firm,” says Mark Dowd, a spokesman for Instinet. He emphasized, however, that an outright sale is one of three options to be considered. The others include going public through a stock offering or retaining the status quo under private ownership.
California-based Silver Lake bought control of Instinet in December following Reuters Group’s sale of Instinet to Nasdaq Stock Market for $1.9 billion. Nasdaq took ownership of Instinet-owned electronic trading operation Inet, while other parts of the company went to Bank of New York and Silver Lake. The latter joined with Instinet management to purchase the agency brokerage for $207.5 million.