The Charles Schwab Corp. (NYSE: SCH), a California-based financial institution, Wednesday announced plans to acquire Connecticut’s SoundView Technology Group (Nasdaq: SNDV), a research-driven securities firm, for about $317 million in cash.Schwab will pay $15.50 per share for SoundView Technology, a premium of about 17% over its closing price of $13.25 on Tuesday.Under the agreement, Schwab will begin a tender offer for all outstanding shares of SoundView. The tender offer will be followed by a merger in which all remaining SoundView shareholders will receive the same $15.50 per SoundView share in cash.Upon completion of the acquisition, which is expected to take place in the first quarter of 2004, SoundView’s trading platform and execution operations will be combined with Schwab Capital Markets’ operations in Jersey City. Schwab Capital Markets is a subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corp.The combination will allow Schwab Capital Markets to provide institutional clients “with a deep, differentiated fundamental equity research offering — built on both firms’ histories of delivering influential research — combined with its client-focused trade execution capabilities,” Charles Schwab Corp. said in a statement. The combined organization will be named Schwab SoundView Capital Markets and will be jointly managed by Mark Loehr, CEO of SoundView, and Larry Leibowitz, Schwab Capital Markets’ executive vice president for equities.