The InterTech Group Inc. has exited its decade-long investment in a video surveillance technology firm in exchange for shares in another business.

The North Charleston-based company had been a stockholder in Vicon Industries Inc. since 2008, but the investment never quite hit pay dirt.

This week, two InterTech affiliates traded their combined 46 percent stake for slightly more than 1 million shares of Cemtrex Inc. that were valued at about $2.96 million as of Tuesday.

Robert Johnston, chief strategy officer at InterTech, said the Jenkins Avenue conglomerate plans to give up its seat on Vicon?s board.

But the companies aren’t severing business ties: Vicon still has a $6 million line of credit from InterTech-owned NIL Funding.

The stock swap was was announced Monday. It makes Cemtrex, the largest shareholder in Hauppauge, N.Y-based Vicon.

At the same time, InterTech becomes one of the largest investors in Cemtrex, with a nearly 10 percent stake.

?The transaction came together very quickly,? Johnston said Tuesday. He noted that Vicon and Cemtrex are both headquartered on Long Island, work with similar technologies and ?have a lot of synergies that we just didn?t have obviously.?

?It seemed like a good fit,? Johnston said.

Vicon?s software and hardware are used to run video security systems around the world.

The relatively small company has struggled to keep up with changes in the rapidly evolving surveillance industry, and its stock price has steadily declined over most of the past decade.

Cemtrex provides manufacturing services for makers of electronics and environmental control systems. It called the Vicon stock acquisition a “strategic investment” that will help “expand our operations in long-term growth markets.?

InterTech is among the largest privately held companies based in South Carolina. Most of its latest publicly disclosed stock purchases have been in the energy and utility industries.

It began buying shares of Vicon in 2008 and invested a total of about $4.75 million since then, according to filings with Securities and Exchange Commission.

It became the biggest owner in late 2017 when it paid 40 cents a share, or $3 million in total, for a big block of stock and the rights to buy more at the same price.