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Strategies & Market Trends : The Final Frontier - Online Remote Trading -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TFF who wrote (9737)	2/13/2002 6:26:58 AM
From: supertip	Respond to of 12617

DATEK FOR SALE By ERICA COPULSKY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- February 12, 2002 -- Datek Online Holdings, all cleaned up after recently settling securities-fraud charges, is shopping for a potential buyer, sources familiar with the situation told The Post. Jersey City-based Datek is said to have hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to handle the process, which may lead to a sale of the closely held online brokerage. A Datek spokesman declined to comment on the matter, citing firm policy. However, sources said that Datek has held discussions over the last few weeks with a handful of potential buyers, and at least one - ETrade - has already submitted a bid for the company. An ETrade spokeswoman was not available for comment. Other possible suitors may include TD Waterhouse, Bank of Montreal, Wells Fargo and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s online brokerage unit Brown & Co., investment bankers said. Talk of a possible Datek sale began circulating Friday after Putnam Lovell Securities analyst Richard Repetto said in a research note to clients that the online firm "is testing the acquisition waters." Repetto said Datek could be worth about $600 million to $800 million. But bankers think it could be sold for as much as $1 billion or more. To be sure, Datek has been the subject of takeover talk before without any sign of a deal taking place. But this time may be different. Just a few weeks ago, the firm paid $6.3 million to settle federal charges that its former day-trading unit engaged in securities fraud in the late 1990s. With its dark past behind it, the firm is now free to pursue other options, including a sale. Just over a year ago, private equity firms Bain Capital, TA Associates and Silver Lake Partners invested about $700 million, in part to buy out the majority stakes of Sheldon Maschler and Jeffrey Citron, two founders of Datek with a history of trading violations. Some sources speculated that the private equity investors may be looking to monetize their investment. Datek, the fifth-biggest online broker, with more than 80,000 online accounts, spun off its day-trading assets to another securities firm in 1998 and shuffled management to distance itself from Citron and Maschler.