Schwab not interested in E*Trade buy
The Charles Schwab Corp. is not interested in buying competitor E*Trade Financial Corp., at least not before any potential bankruptcy, a Schwab executive said Wednesday at the firm's semiannual Business Update meeting.
The Charles Schwab Corp. is not interested in buying competitor E*Trade Financial Corp., at least not before any potential bankruptcy, a Schwab executive said Wednesday at the firm’s semiannual Business Update meeting.
Asked by an analyst whether the San Francisco-based discount broker would consider buying the troubled New York City-based E*Trade, Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger said his company has no interest “in taking on a complex balance sheet issue, a complex set of loans or securities that would require what we would probably all categorize as massive workouts, write-downs and impairments.”
He declined to say whether Schwab would consider an acquisition of the firm’s assets if it were in bankruptcy.
E*Trade shares were down about 14% to $1.08 in early afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Composite Index.
They have declined about 80% from a high of about $6.04 a share to $1.21 in the past 52 weeks.
Shares of Schwab were down about 1.2% to $15.55, and have ranged from a high of $26.20 to $14.83 over the past year.
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