Interactive Brokers Group IPO nearing debut
Apr 5, 2007
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Interactive Brokers Group Inc. late Wednesday set an estimated price range of $23-$27 a share and a deal size of 20 million shares in a bid to raise $500 million in its upcoming initial public offering. The Greenwich, Conn. firm trades futures and foreign exchange instruments as a member of more than 60 electronic exchanges and trading venues around the world. Its IPO will likely debut within a month for trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol IBKR. WR Hambrecht, HSBC and Fox-Pitt Kelton are underwriting the deal.
Dear Friends of Interactive Brokers:
After 30 years of building our closely held company, we are ready for the next phase of our development. We believe that a public offering of our shares will provide us with greater name recognition and accelerate our growth. Accordingly, we are now launching the Initial Public Offering of 20 million shares of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (“IBKR”), and we expect the public offering price to be between $23 and $27 per share.
Throughout our history, we have dedicated ourselves to building technology to provide liquidity and direct market access for our customers at very low costs. It is in this spirit that we are offering our shares in a Dutch auction through WR Hambrecht + Co.’s Open IPOTM system.
IB Account Holders can participate in the IPO through our fully electronic IBIPO Dutch Auction System, or along with others may buy shares in the IPO through the participating broker of their choice. Enclosed you will find a copy of IBKR’s preliminary prospectus as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Complete details on the mechanics of the IBKR IPO are contained in the prospectus’ Plan of Distribution section.
IB Customers will find instructions on how to enter and cancel bids in the IBIPO Auction system at www.interactivebrokers.com/IBIPO. The IBIPO Auction system may be launched in Account Management under the Trading Access/IBIPO Auction tab.
For the latest information on the IBKR IPO, including updates on the list of participating brokers, offering dates and an electronic copy of the prospectus you may visit our dedicated web site IPO.Interactivebrokers.com.
An IBIPO auction is typically open for bids for one to two weeks prior to the closing date of the offering. Once the bidding concludes, WR Hambrecht + Co. will assemble the bids and, working from highest to lowest, it will identify the first bid price that will sell all the offering’s shares. This is the clearing price and will be the maximum price at which the issuing company will offer its shares. The issuing company and placement agents will then decide the price at which the issuing company will offer the shares, taking a number of economic and business factors into account in addition to the clearing price.
As always we greatly value your business and look forward to continuing to serve you with our premier technology and low trading costs.
Sincerely,
Thomas Peterffy
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