The mergers and acquisitions wave is spreading across the online trading industry, with Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), one of the leader in this space in the United States, today unveiling a deal that will see it buy online investing marketplace Covestor.
The two companies have already reached a definitive agreement on the acquisition. The transaction, of which we still do not have any financial details, has been approved by the boards of both Interactive Brokers and Covestor. The deal is set to be finalized in the second quarter of 2015.
Covestor prides itself as a pioneer in the online investing business and the first digital asset management company to provide both active and passive investment options.
“Covestor brought the convenience, transparency and cost comparison capabilities that online marketplaces provide to the financial services sector,” said Covestor CEO Asheesh Advani. “We developed our marketplace so that people could easily search for, compare and select investment strategies from multiple money managers. We are now joining Interactive Brokers’ marketplace to bring more products to more people around the globe.”
“This acquisition increases our ability to rapidly add more portfolio managers to Covestor’s marketplace, provide additional asset classes to clients, and expand our offerings globally,” added Steven Holstein, Covestor’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Interactive Brokers’ Chairman and CEO Thomas Peterffy also voiced his content with the deal. “We are creating a marketplace that brings investors, wealth managers and money managers together. The acquisition of Covestor is a positive development toward making Interactive Brokers the premier global platform for investors, advisors, hedge funds and money managers to find each other.”
Milan Galik, President of Interactive Brokers, also added, “this development will enable us to further refine our platform to provide a more complete service to robo-advisor companies in general.”
To view the official announcement about the deal, click here.