Interactive Brokers’ Covestor moves to new website amid business renaming
In line with previously announced plans, Covestor changes its name to Interactive Brokers Asset Management and moves to a new website.
A follow-up to FinanceFeeds’ earlier report about plans by Covestor, an online investing expert that is a part of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), to change its name…
Covestor has now moved to a new website, with the traffic from covestor.com redirected to ibkram.com, in line with the planned name change from Covestor to Interactive Brokers Asset Management.
The plans for the renaming of Covestor were announced in July this year to reflect the fact that the company has been a part of the Interactive Brokers Group since 2015. Covestor noted back then that whereas the company will have a new business name, its mission stays the same and it will keep offering various portfolios, designed to help investors meet their financial goals, including the Smart Beta portfolios.
The changes at Covestor happen amid wider restructuring at Interactive Brokers, affecting mainly the market making segment. In March this year, Interactive Brokers unveiled plans to wind down its options market making activities worldwide, with the phaseout to continue in the coming months.
In May this year, Two Sigma Securities, LLC (TSS), the market-making affiliate of Two Sigma Investments, LP announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire the US options-market-making business of Timber Hill, a subsidiary of Interactive Brokers.
In its report for the second quarter of 2017, Interactive Brokers said it might be exposed to about $25 million in one-time restructuring costs, of which $22 million has been recognized during the second quarter. A significant portion of these exit costs is expected to be defrayed by continuing certain market making activities until the restructuring is complete.
As a result of terminating its options market making operations, Interactive Brokers expects that approximately $39 million in annual net expenses will be absorbed by the electronic brokerage segment, of which approximately $2 million has been absorbed during the second quarter.
The broker aims to continue conducting certain trading activities in stocks and related instruments to facilitate its electronic brokerage customers’ trading in products such as ETFs, ADRs and CFDs.
