Interactive Brokers Group to resume Nasdaq listing

Interactive Brokers Group Inc., a Greenwich-headquartered automated global electronic broker, has announced that it will resume the listing of its shares on the Nasdaq Global Select Market after one year on the startup IEX exchange.

Interactive Brokers Group was the first company to be listed on the IEX when it launched in September 2018. However, parent company IEX Group Inc. struggled to attract other companies to list on its exchange and announced yesterday that it was shutting down its stock listing business. In a press statement, Interactive Brokers Group said its common stock will be trading on Nasdaq on Oct. 7 under the “IKBR” ticker symbol.

“Last year, we switched to IEX because we believed that their advanced exchange model, including their mid-price orders and crumbling order algorithms, provided the opportunity for substantially better execution prices for orders routed there,” said Thomas Peterffy, chairman and founder of Interactive Brokers. “We hoped that we would be followed by other listings and, as the exchange gained greater volume, the public investing in those shares would benefit. Unfortunately, IEX exchange could not gain more listings and there were fewer market-makers trading our stock on IEX than on Nasdaq. We gave it a year and we tried our best, but we now have to accept that, in spite of our good intentions, returning to Nasdaq will be best for our shareholders.”

“We appreciated Interactive Brokers being our first listed company,” said Brad Katsuyama, co-founder and CEO of IEX. “I have great respect for Thomas and Interactive Brokers. In discussions with Thomas, I came to the conclusion that listings is not a core part of IEX”™s business and we will exit listings after IBKR leaves to focus on higher growth opportunities.”