Interactive Brokers’ Covestor set to change its name
Later this year, Covestor will be operating under a new name – Interactive Brokers Asset Management.
Online investing expert Covestor, a part of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:IBKR), has unveiled plans to change its name later this year.
The new name of Covestor will be Interactive Brokers Asset Management and it reflects the fact that since 2015, Covestor has been part of the Interactive Brokers Group.
In an announcement on its website, Covestor stresses that while the company will have a new business name, its mission will remain the same and it will continue to offer a variety of portfolios, designed to help investors meet their financial goals, including the Smart Beta portfolios.
Covestor promises that the fees and investment minimums will stay low and easy to understand.
In the coming months, the new business name and branding as Interactive Brokers Asset Management will be seen. Covestor’s website will have a new address, but the traffic will be redirected from the existing Covestor.com website to the new address.
Clients do not need to change anything – including their passwords or account numbers – to prepare for this change.
There is a wider restructuring going on at Interactive Brokers, following its decision to stop its options market making activities globally.
Back in March, Thomas Peterffy, Chairman and CEO of Interactive Brokers, said:
“Today retail order-flow is purchased by large order internalizers and joining them would represent a conflict we do not wish to have. On the other hand, providing liquidity to sophisticated, professional synthesizers of short-term fundamental, technical and big data is not a profitable activity”.
In its earnings report for the first quarter of 2017, Interactive Brokers forecast it will incur approximately $25 million in one-time restructuring costs, with a significant portion of them to be defrayed by continuing certain market making activities until the restructuring is complete. As a result of closing its options market making operations, the company forecast that around $39 million in annual net expenses will be absorbed by the electronic brokerage segment.
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.
