5 replies to this topic

[S.I.M.O.N.]

FF- this will triple within the first 90days. -------------------------------------- Interactive Brokers April 14, 2007 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. 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 website 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 IBKR has filed a registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents IBKR has filed with the SEC for more complete information about IBKR and the offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, IBKR will make the latest prospectus available at ipo.interactivebrokers.com.

[hedgehawk]

FF- this will triple within the first 90days.

--------------------------------------
Interactive Brokers
April 14, 2007
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. 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 website 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

IBKR has filed a registration statement (including a prospectus) with the SEC for the offering to which this communication relates. Before you invest, you should read the prospectus in that registration statement and other documents IBKR has filed with the SEC for more complete information about IBKR and the offering. You may get these documents for free by visiting EDGAR on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. Alternatively, IBKR will make the latest prospectus available at ipo.interactivebrokers.com.

What are you basing your price appreciation figures on? I have an IB account and received the offer as well and found your post timely and bullish. I thought financials were out of favor or heading that way?

[S.I.M.O.N.]

my view of IB is similar to google, the second mousie gets the cheese principle.

[newportsurf]

PNF........ I agree

[VolPivots]

FF- this will triple within the first 90days.

If the market values IB like any other discount electronic brokerage, then arguably at $25/share, it's close to fully valued at a market cap of $10B. Etrade and Ameritrade both have similar financial stats and are also trading around a $10B market cap.

If the market values IB like an exchange...it makes the bulk of its money as an electronic market maker...it's worth a lot more.

2 things I don't particularly like: 1) it's a dutch auction IPO and doesn't have the opening price support of the big bulge bracket IPO underwriters. And it's unlikely to receive any public hype without their support. Also, as a dutch IPO, it's being offered exclusively to current IB customers, many of which are VST to ST traders (how many u think plan to dump on opening day and how much buying interest will there be to absorb the selling by those in search of "sure thing easy money")

and 2) Mr. Peterffy, at 62 and nearing retirement, seems to solely be seeking a liquidity event to monetize the value of his asset without giving up control of the company....he's only offering 5% of the company; as such it doesn't deserve a public-to-private premium as it's still predominantly privately held....really this offering is nothing more than a 5% equity stake in a privately-held corp. This might be viewed as a positive in the sense that he believes he can liquidate over time and earn an even higher return (while continuing to maintain the dominate controlling interest in the company); and you have a fairly low float of publicly-tradeable shares. On the other hand, maybe Peterffy's being a bit (or very) greedy....you can't have your cake an eat it too.

I plan to bid on a small stake not knowing what's going to happen, but IMHO this ain't anywhere close to a "bet the farm, sure thing".

[hedgehawk]

"If the market values IB like an exchange...it makes the bulk of its money as an electronic market maker...it's worth a lot more." I guess if it is worth a lot more then the dutch auction will take care of that. Looks like this is a medium to long term play betting that the market values them like a broker for now, then somehow they metamorphis into an exchange with a slick marketing campaign.