Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
The upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of BATS Global Markets, the owner of institutional forex trading platform HotSpot FX, on the US-based Bats BZX Exchange, which it owns, is oversubscribed by at least five times just three days before the sale is due, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing sources close to the matter.
BATS is to offer 11.2 million common shares which will be priced after the market closes on Thursday, the day before trading starts, and their value is expected to be between $17 and $19 per unit. This means that the company aims to raise as much as $212.8 million, becoming the largest IPO this year so far. At the high end, the company’s valuation is to be as much as $1.8 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Underwriters will have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 1.68 million shares, BATS said earlier this month, when it announced the expected share price range. After the IPO is completed, BATS’s bank and broker proprietors, among which are giants JP Morgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, will have combined 82% of the company’s voting rights.
BATS Global Markets is a US-based operator of exchanges and services for financial market. It is headquartered in Kansas City and has offices in New York, London, Chicago and Singapore.
The company owns four US equities exchanges – BZX, BYX, EDGX, EDGA, one European equities exchange – Bats Europe, one US options exchange – Bats Options, and one institutional forex trading platform – HotSpot FX, which it acquired in January 2015.
BATS tried to list in 2012, again on its own exchange, but the attempt was unsuccessful due to technical issues.
Since the beginning of the year, at least two forex brokers have issued IPOs – CMC Markets (London Stock Exchange) and Hirose FX (Japanese Stock Exchange), and another one is yet to do so – X-Trade Brokers, aka XTB (Warsaw Stock Exchange).
Source: Bloomberg
