U.S. electronic market maker GTS Securities LLC agreed to acquire the assets of British lender Barclays PLC's equities automated options trading unit for an undisclosed amount.

As part of the transaction, roughly 40 Barclays personnel are expected to become full-time GTS employees. Kirill Gelman, who oversaw the business at Barclays since 2008, will head the new GTS options trading business, GTS said in a Dec. 11 statement.

The business quotes prices for more than 735,000 individual securities across 13 global options exchanges and handles about 2% of all exchange-traded equity options volume in the U.S.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020. GTS was advised by Rosenblatt Securities on the transaction.