Interactive Brokers, an electronic market maker and brokerage firm that trades options, futures and other securities, priced its IPO at $30.01 on Thursday night, a 20% premium to the midpoint of its originally proposed $23 to $27 price range. The offering, which was conducted through WR Hambrecht's "Open IPO" dutch-auction process, was in high demand, evidenced by the 40 million shares sold in the deal, twice as many that were initially marketed. The $1.2 billion in proceeds raised by Interactive Brokers, which will largely go to the firm's founder, exceeds the recent deal by Metro PCS to become the largest grossing IPO of 2007. The stock is expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker IBKR on Friday.
