Bill, thought you might like to see the updated news on Ecorp and their alliance with Schwab. With all of their holdings looks to be a good purchase.
Listed on Australian exchange as ECP.AX
Purchase thru Schwab using ticker symbol ECPLF
Current share price as of yesterday close is $2.75 american.
au.dailynews.yahoo.com
Tuesday 21 December, 4:20 AM AEST
FOCUS-Schwab plans Australian broking shake-up
By Sophie Hares
SYDNEY, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Charles Schwab Corp, the name Australian discount brokers don't want to hear, said on Monday it will tackle the Australian market through an online venture with media mogul Kerry Packer.
Schwab, the leading online and discount broker in the United States, said it will take a 50 percent stake in Online Broker Holdings Ltd, a unit of Packer's Internet spin-off ecorp Ltd which operates the ShareTrade broking service.
ShareTrade is estimated to be the fifth largest online broker at a time when about 10 percent of Australian Stock Exchange trades are Internet-based and forecast to rise dramatically as the major banks launch their own services.
"We're going to start by offering services into the existing ShareTrade customer base," Schwab senior vice president Lynnda Sarinske told Reuters from San Francisco.
Sarinske will move to Sydney in January to head up the new business. She said Australia's growing investment culture and its high percentage of Internet "early adopters" proved decisive factors behind Schwab's decision to tackle the market.
EARLY PROFITS SEEN
Neither partner would comment on the terms of the joint venture to be formally launched in the calendar 2000 second quarter but Sarinske said she expected to see short term profits.
The venture melds Schwab's established position and experience in online broking with the local clout and cross marketing potential of Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd magazine, media investment, and television company. Analysts said other online brokers have good reason to worry.
"The most important competitive threat from the Internet for the major banks comes from securities brokers, particularly well entrenched ones like Schwab," said a banking analyst who declined to be named.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia's ComSec, which charges A$29 for trades up to A$10,000 (US$6,400), dominates the local market, followed by Etrade Ltd, Sanford, Greenline and then ShareTrade, which will eventually be known as Charles Schwab Australia. Full service brokers, by contrast, charge about A$80 per trade.
Etrade said the emergence of Schwab is a welcome sign for the online market.
"Schwab have been snooping around the market for a while," said Bill Wileman, a spokesman for Etrade which estimates its market share at 25 to 30 percent.
"We've been aware of their interest in Australia, and our view on that is it validates again that Internet is going to be the primary vehicle for broking," Wileman said.
Patrick Russell, telecommunications and Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch, estimates the joint venture could eventually grab around 15 to 20 percent of Australia's online trades.
"There's no question we want to be one of the top players in the delivery of financial services, over a wide variety of products," ecorp executive chairman Daniel Petre said.
"How that market fragments and whether a top player means you have one percent or 10 percent who knows, but this is not a niche play," said Petre, whose company also operates the ninemsn online venture between PBL and Microsoft Corp and has a stake in mortgage originator Wizard.
(c) Reuters Limited 1999
REUTER NEWS SERVICE |
