IEX announces first company to list

The IEX Group has announced that Interactive Brokers Group will be the first company to list on its venue, with the listing expected to happen on October 5, 2018.

The news comes after a multi-year wait for IEX, which was approved as a stock exchange by the SEC in July 2016. But the venue had to be patient as it took the SEC until October 2017 to allow IEX to list companies.

Interactive Brokers cites IEX’s speed bump – which the venue claims prevents faster traders from front-running orders – and its lower charge for marketable orders as reasons for its appeal as a place to list. Interactive Brokers is currently listed on Nasdaq.

‘We at Interactive Brokers understand that being the first listing on a new exchange may entail certain risk, but we think individual and institutional customers that own and trade our stock will receive better execution prices, and that advantage will outweigh the risk,’ says Thomas Peterffy, chairman and founder of Interactive Brokers, in a statement.

In a statement, Brad Katsuyama, founder and CEO of IEX, thanks Interactive Brokers for being the first to list on IEX. ‘I have long admired Interactive Brokers’ chairman and founder Thomas Peterffy’s bold, candid and consistent view that equity markets are here to serve investors, and his critical role in innovating the industry over the past four decades,’ he says. ‘In fact, his 2010 keynote speech to the World Federation of Exchanges on the important role stock exchanges play in the marketplace partly inspired me to co-found IEX so, for me personally, things have certainly come full circle.’

IEX launched in 2012 and quickly gained notoriety after being prominently featured in the Michael Lewis best-selling book Flash Boys.