Ally Acquires TradeKing Group

I couldn’t be more excited to share this news: today we’re announcing our agreement to be acquired by Ally Financial. (Read the full press release here.) 

In this blog post, I want to explain why we chose this path and arrived at this destination, why we chose Ally as our partner for our next phase of growth, and how this news will benefit everyone in the TradeKing family – particularly you, our clients.

Eleven years ago, we launched TradeKing with a mission: to broaden access to active trading and options at a fair and simple price, supported by outstanding trader education and customer service. I’m humbled to say we achieved that. We raised the bar considerably in online brokerage and built a great firm. Inevitably, many larger firms have expressed interest in investing in us, partnering with us, and acquiring us along the way.

I love what we’ve created together at TradeKing. At the same time, it’s HARD to compete with firms exponentially larger than us. We’ve always “punched above our weight”, to the amazement of many. That said, we wondered how great we could make our client and employee experience if we had similarly deep resources – in a fair fight, as it were. We’ve also become increasingly conscious of how the pace of change in technology and finance is accelerating. We worried that we could find ourselves falling behind if we didn’t partner up in a way that would give us sufficient resources to compete effectively at this higher speed.

A few months ago, we felt the time was finally right to explore our options seriously on behalf of our shareholders, employees and clients. I turned to trusted professional advisors in the financial industry as well as personal mentors like the Quick family, Willem Willemstein, Michael Brown, Ric Duques and Peter Ianello for guidance through this new process.

Once this “Pandora’s Box” is opened, one never knows what may pop out of it. We had several interested bidders, and when a handful of them moved within a few dollars of each other, our investors and board members generously left the final choice up to me and my teammates.

This allowed us to do what we love at our core: put our clients, employees and values first, which led us to choose Ally.

Ally has a great history, with a culture and values that align perfectly with ours. It is a strong modern company focused on growing its presence in digital financial services. By acquiring TradeKing, it’s demonstrating its strength and willingness to grow in an important way. Our goals are aligned, as are our businesses. Ally doesn’t currently offer online brokerage or advisory services, so TradeKing fills that gap perfectly for Ally’s customers. TradeKing doesn’t offer online banking or the many related services of a bank – Ally does.

Ally is true to its name and word. Its team members walk it like they talk it, never backtracking or equivocating on a position regarding the deal, the team or how clients would be treated. Ally doesn’t anticipate any price changes for existing TradeKing customers for the foreseeable future. Ally values the entire TradeKing team, too. We’ll all keep working together to take TradeKing to the next level – also unlikely with many partners. In short, Ally is our kind of people, and we’re thrilled to have them as a partner for the next leg of our journey!

As TradeKing clients, you’ll benefit most of all. In the past, I’ve remarked that brokerage clients can’t be “acquired” like cattle. You have to attract and then earn their trust – then keep earning it every day after that. Many of our competitors have cavalierly ignored this truth to their cost. The same rules will apply to TradeKing’s acquisition. This acquisition is our chance – and our obligation – to impress you all over again, to win your business and trust, and to meet and exceed your expectations again and again. When we acquired Zecco in 2012, we worked hard to produce a remarkable value for the Zecco client base. Well over 90% of Zecco clients decided to stay with the new TradeKing – an incredible retention rate in our business. We’re working hard now – and making extraordinary progress – bringing MB Trading clients into the TradeKing fold. We’ll do the same in partnering with Ally.

We’ll have more to report in the coming weeks and months as the new TradeKing takes shape. In the meantime, I want to thank so many people who’ve helped TradeKing come this far: advisors, board members, investors, mentors, our families, for me personally my wife Courtney, and especially YOU. Without so many clients choosing TradeKing and sticking by us, we couldn’t have built the extraordinary firm we have that Ally values so highly.  

We hope to close this deal in the third quarter of this year, and I remain committed to making this acquisition a homerun for our clients.

Thanks for taking the time to hear my thoughts on where we are headed. Don’t hesitate to share your reactions, questions, or thoughts in the comments below. While it’s early days yet, I will do everything in my power to keep you informed and put your interests uppermost.

Be Good,
Don Montanaro
CEO, TradeKing Group
www.tradeking.com