Pasadena Firm to Buy Shaw Online Business

D.E. Shaw & Co. agreed to sell its online brokerage business, FarSight Financial Services, to a Pasadena-based start-up company, Platinum Online International Inc. Terms of the sale, expected to close by Sept. 30, weren’t disclosed. Platinum was co-founded by Agnes Lew and Daniel Kwoh, a founder of Gemstar International Group Ltd., which sells video and TV equipment. New York-based D.E. Shaw in December announced plans to sell Cambridge, Mass.-based FarSight as part of a restructuring. Last month, Merrill Lynch & Co. bought DESoft, Shaw’s 30-person software development business. D.E. Shaw, which also runs a hedge fund, was started in 1988 by former Columbia University professor David Shaw. In December, D.E. Shaw said it will fire 25% of its staff, or 264 people, and close a trading alliance with BankAmerica Corp. after the unit lost $200 million in the first nine months of 1998, mostly trading bonds. * A.G. Edwards Inc. said its profit rose 4% in the fiscal fourth quarter to $75.9 million, or 78 cents a share, as trading volume rose. The securities firm’s revenue grew 13% to $595.1 million.