E-Trade

E-Trade Financial Corporation

Phone: 1-800-ETRADE-1 (1-800-387-2331)
Email:
Head Office
Headquarters New York City, New York U.S.
Known As
SWIFT Code
Category
Commercial
Type
Public
Origin
Local
Description

In 1982, William A. Porter and Bernard A. Newcomb founded TradePlus in Palo Alto, California. In 1991, Porter founded a new company, E-Trade Securities, Inc.,[4] with several hundred thousand dollars of startup capital from TradePlus. E-Trade offered its trading services via America Online and Compuserve. In 1994, its revenues neared $11 million (up from $850,000 in 1992). It later reorganized and emerged under the name E-Trade Group, with E-Trade Securities as its principal subsidiary.[5] In August 1996, it went public with Robertson, Stephens & Company as the lead underwriter. In 2003, the company changed its name from E-Trade Group Inc. to E-Trade Financial Corporation. In 2001, an online brokerage firm known as Web Street Securities was assumed by E-Trade. Web Street had a strong presence in cities throughout the United States with offices in Beverly Hills, Boston, Denver and San Francisco. The sale was heard to be around $50 million in stock. In 2003, the Toronto-Dominion Bank held talks to merge its TD Waterhouse discount brokerage with E-Trade, but the two sides could not come to an agreement over control of the merged entity.[6][7] In 2005, E-Trade made an unsolicited offer for Ameritrade, currently the second largest US discount broker. Ameritrade instead purchased TD Waterhouse, with TD Bank holding a 39% stake in the new entity.[8] In August 2005, E-Trade Financial acquired Harrisdirect, formerly a discount brokerage service of Bank of Montreal. Two months later, E-Trade acquired Brown & Company (aka BrownCo), formerly a discount brokerage service of J.P. Morgan for $1.6 billion in cash.[9] E-Trade previously operated in 13 nations, however they revoked the brand name license from what was formerly known as SBI E-Trade Securities in Japan, following a disagreement with E-Trade's United States headquarters over SBI pursuing unauthorized international expansion outside of Japan. Thus, the E-Trade brand has disappeared from Japan.

Established
Palo Alto, California (1982)