Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
BATS Global Markets, the owner of institutional forex trading platform HotSpot FX, set on Thursday the price of its initial public offering (IPO), which is scheduled to launch on Friday, at $19 per share, which is at the high end of the initially proposed value. The company has decided to increase the share issued to 13.3 million common stocks from the announced 11.2 million.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported the company’s share issue was oversubscribed by at least five times just three days before the sale’s due date. Now, the company is to issue 2.1 million more shares than planned. In addition, underwriters have the option to purchase up to an additional 1,995,000 shares, which represents an increase compared to the previously announced 1.68 million shares.
The offering is expected to commence on 15 April on the US-based Bats BZX Exchange, which is owned by BATS Global Markets, and to be closed on 20 April, but it is subject to customary closing conditions. The shares are offered by certain shareholders of BATS Global Markets. Initially, the share price was expected to range between $17 and $19 per unit.
If all planned shares are sold, the company’s selling shareholders could raise up to more than $290.6 million from the IPO. However, the company will not receive any proceeds from the sale of any shares by the selling stockholders. Initially, BATS Global Markets said its 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 after the listing. However, whether this ratio would remain the same (having in mind the increased issue volume), is not clear.
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). Earler this week, XTB announced it has set a maximum IPO price of PLN 13 per share.
Source: BATS Global Markets
