Etrade financial center market st san francisco

E-Trade Financial Corporation (stylized as E*TRADE) is a financial services subsidiary of

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

, which offers an

electronic trading platform In finance, an electronic trading platform also known as an online trading platform, is a computer software program that can be used to place orders for financial products over a network with a financial intermediary. Various financial products ...

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct excha ...

financial asset A financial asset is a non-physical asset whose value is derived from a contractual claim, such as bank deposits, bonds, and participations in companies' share capital. Financial assets are usually more liquid than other tangible assets, such a ...

s. The company receives revenue from

interest income Passive income is unearned income that is acquired automatically with minimal labor to earn or maintain. It is often combined with another source of income, such as a side job. In the United States, the IRS divides income into three categories ...

margin Margin may refer to: Physical or graphical edges *Margin (typography), the white space that surrounds the content of a page *Continental margin, the zone of the ocean floor that separates the thin oceanic crust from thick continental crust *Leaf ...

balances, commissions for order execution,

payment for order flow Payment for order flow (PFOF) is the compensation that a stockbroker receives from a market maker in exchange for the broker routing its clients' trades to that market maker. It is a controversial practice that has been called a " kickback" by its ...

, and management services. The company has 30

branches A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually r ...

History

In 1982, William A. Porter and Bernard A. Newcomb founded TradePlus in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

, with $15,000 in capital. In 1991, Porter and Newcomb founded E-Trade Securities, Inc., 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. By June 30, 1996, the company had 73,000 accounts and processed 8,000 trades per day, with quarterly revenue of $15 million. On August 16, 1996, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

. In 2000, the company acquired Telebanc. In May 2001, the company acquired Web Street Securities for $45 million in stock. In January 2004,

Toronto-Dominion Bank Toronto-Dominion Bank (french: links=no, Banque Toronto-Dominion), doing business as TD Bank Group (french: links=no, Groupe Banque TD), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. T ...

held talks to merge its

TD Waterhouse TD Waterhouse Canada Inc. is a Canadian financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario and owned by Toronto-Dominion Bank. The company does business through several divisions, TD Direct Investing, TD Wealth Financial Planning, a ...

discount brokerage with E-Trade, but the two sides could not come to an agreement over control of the merged entity. TD Waterhouse instead merged with Ameritrade to form

TD Ameritrade TD Ameritrade is a stockbroker that offers an electronic trading platform for the trade of financial assets including common stocks, preferred stocks, futures contracts, exchange-traded funds, forex, options, mutual funds, fixed income investmen ...

. After the merger, E-Trade continued talks to merge with TD Ameritrade but the two sides could not agree on price and governance rights. DLJ direct metrocard ad 2001

In August 2005, the company acquired Harrisdirect (known under previous owners as DLJdirect and CSFBdirect) from Bank of Montreal. Two months later, E-Trade acquired Brown & Company (aka BrownCo) from

JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the ...

for $1.6 billion in cash. As a result, E-Trade closed its office in Rancho Cordova, California, on August 31, 2006 and terminated 500 employees. In July 2007, E-Trade Australia, which was a separately operated company owned 6% by the company, was purchased by ANZ Bank for $432 million. E-Trade was battered in the U.S. housing bubble. On November 29, 2007, E-Trade announced a transaction in which

Citadel LLC Citadel LLC (formerly known as Citadel Investment Group, LLC) is an American multinational hedge fund and financial services company. Founded in 1990 by Kenneth C. Griffin, it has more than $50 billion in assets under management . The company ...

invested $2.5 billion in cash in exchange for the company's securitized

subprime mortgage In finance, subprime lending (also referred to as near-prime, subpar, non-prime, and second-chance lending) is the provision of loans to people in the United States who may have difficulty maintaining the repayment schedule. Historically, subpri ...

collateralized debt obligation A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). Originally developed as instruments for the corporate debt markets, after 2002 CDOs became vehicles for refinancing mortgage-backed securities (MBS).Le ...

s (CDOs) and

second lien loan The vast majority of all second lien loans are senior secured obligations of the borrower. Second lien loans differ from both unsecured debt and subordinated debt. First lien secured loans In the event of a bankruptcy or liquidation, the assets ...

s, as well as 12.5% senior unsecured notes, and 84,687,686 shares of

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Comm ...

(equal to 19.99% of the then currently outstanding shares). This resulted in a net $2.2 billion reduction in assets on the company's

balance sheet In financial accounting, a balance sheet (also known as statement of financial position or statement of financial condition) is a summary of the financial balances of an individual or organization, whether it be a sole proprietorship, a Partnersh ...

. Citadel received a seat on the board of directors of the company and Mitch Caplan resigned as CEO. In November 2007, the company revoked the brand name license from SBI E-Trade Securities in Japan. In March 2008, E-Trade named Donald Layton, formerly

vice chairman, as its new CEO. Layton had joined E-Trade's board of directors in November 2007, at the same time as the

deal. In September 2008, the company sold its Canadian division to Scotiabank for . In December 2009, Robert Druskin, a former chief operating officer of Citigroup was named interim CEO and chairman. On March 22, 2010, Steven Freiberg was named CEO. Freiberg was the former co-CEO of Citigroup's global consumer group and former head of its credit card unit. On January 17, 2013, Paul T. Idzik was appointed CEO. Idzik had previously been group chief executive of

DTZ Debenham Thouard Zadelhoff, known as DTZ, was a European joint venture originated from UK, France and the Netherlands, operating as a commercial real estate services firm. On September 1, 2015, Cushman & Wakefield and DTZ merged. In December 20 ...

and also served ten years at Barclays bank. On September 12, 2016, E-Trade acquired OptionsHouse for $725 million and later that month Karl A. Roessner, E-Trade's general counsel since 2009, was appointed CEO. On October 19, 2017, E*TRADE acquired RIA custodial services company Trust Company of America. On August 14, 2019, Michael Pizzi was appointed CEO. On December 9, 2019, E-Trade acquired student loan benefit provider Gradifi. In October 2020, the company was acquired by

"E-Trade Baby" advertising campaign (2008–2014, 2022–present)

E-Trade Baby was an integrated advertising campaign that featured a baby that talked about finance. The goal was to make the audience believe that E-Trade was easy to use. The campaign, which appeared online, on television, and in print, was created by Tor Myhren, then of

Grey Global Group Grey Group is a global advertising and marketing agency with headquarters in New York City, and 432 offices in 96 countries, operating in 154 cities. It is organized into four geographical units: North America; Europe, Middle East & Africa, A ...

. At first, Myhren had doubts if the ad campaign would work. In January 2008, during Super Bowl XLII, the company debuted advertisements featuring the baby, voiced by comedian

Pete Holmes Peter Benedict Holmes (born March 30, 1979) is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster. Musings on spirituality and religion are frequent themes in his works. Holmes gained recognition in the early 2010s as a stand-up comic, ...

, discussing investing in an adult voice in front of a

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or peripheral ...

. The advertising mascot is now sometimes remembered as a symbol of the excesses of the era before the

global financial crisis Global means of or referring to a globe and may also refer to: Entertainment * ''Global'' (Paul van Dyk album), 2003 * ''Global'' (Bunji Garlin album), 2007 * ''Global'' (Humanoid album), 1989 * ''Global'' (Todd Rundgren album), 2015 * Bruno ...

. In February 2009, during

Super Bowl XLIII Super Bowl XLIII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champions Pittsburgh Steelers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champions Arizona Cardinals to decide the National Football League (NFL) champ ...

, the company once again aired a 30-second advertisement featuring the baby, along with a

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

page, updates on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

, and videos on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. As a result of the advertisement, the company realized a 19% increase in online applications and an 86% increase in website traffic in the week after the game. In January 2011, an episode of '' SportsNation'' on

ESPN2 ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%). ESPN2 was initially fo ...

parodied the commercial with sportscaster

Michelle Beadle Michelle Denise Beadle (born October 23, 1975) is an American sports reporter and host who is part of the San Antonio Spurs broadcast team. Beadle was formerly the co-host of the ESPN morning sports show '' Get Up!'' along with Jalen Rose and ...

as a "Beadle Baby". In February 2011, the baby was featured in an advertisement called "Enzo the Tailor", in which the baby was fitted for a custom-made suit and talked about how his tailor could retire in

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

. In January 2013, the company aired an advertisement during

Super Bowl XLVII Super Bowl XLVII was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Baltimore Ravens and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

featuring the baby. In the advertisement, the baby focuses on how much money is at stake in

401(k) In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension (savings) account, as defined in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Periodical employee contributions come directly out of the ...

account fees and offers a better approach: "come to E-Trade, and Save It". On March 21, 2014, the company announced the end of the E-Trade baby via a commercial which aired during the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. On February 13, 2022, the baby made a return during a commercial which aired during Super Bowl LVI.

References

External links

* {{Online brokerages 1982 establishments in California 1996 initial public offerings 2020 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1982 Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Financial services companies established in 1982 Online brokerages American corporate subsidiaries Online financial services companies of the United States Morgan Stanley Companies based in Arlington County, Virginia

History

"E-Trade Baby" advertising campaign (2008–2014, 2022–present)

See also

References

External links