NYSE Euronext has bought a 25 percent stake in Fixnetix, a UK headquartered technology vendor, as part of a two-year plan to expand its technology revenues following its failed merger with the Deutsche Borse.

The pricetag came to about $27.6 million and NYSE Euronext has the right to buy the remaining 75 percent of Fixnetix by the end of 2015.

On February 1, the European Commission blocked a deal between NYSE Euronext and the Deutsche Borse on the grounds it would create a quasi-monopoly in trading European derivatives. NYSE Euronext's Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer then eagerly touted NYSE'x new strategy to diversify its income by licensing its technology. He says the exchange wants to more than double the annual revenues it generates from technology sales by 2015. Revenues for the exchange's technology unit should increase by more than 10 percent this year from $490 million in 2011, says Niederauer.

NYSE Euronext's strategy involves building out trading infrastructure hubs in key markets around the world to provide market access, hosting, data feeds and order routing technology. Fixnetix rounds out that goal by offering real-time low latency pre-trade risk monitoring, low-latency market data and trading infrastructure. It is in 33 co-location and proximity hosting centers in Europe and the US and offers trading access to more than 50 markets -- far more than NYSE Euronext. Launched in 2006, the UK firm has been in talks with NYSE Euronext since November 2011 when it said it was looking for either a partial or complete sale.

"This strategic shareholder interest in Fixnetix aligns with our mission to build a global capital markets community supported by world class technology, broad connectivity and diverse customer participation that yields great liquidity and market innovation," says Stanley Young, chief executive of NYSE Euronext's technology unit called NYSE Technologies in a statement which indicated  that the firms would offer "integrated market access to liquidity markets in Europe, the US and Asia.

Written by Chris Kentouris, Editor-in-chief (Chris can be contacted through Chris.Kentouris@hotmail.com)

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