Bats Pulls IPO After Errors Halt Apple Trades
Bats Global Markets Inc., the 6-year-old equity exchange, canceled its initial public offering Friday, stunning Wall Street, after errors on its computer systems derailed trading in the stock and forced a halt in Apple trades.
“We believe withdrawing the IPO is the appropriate action to take for our company and our shareholders,” Joe Ratterman, the chief executive officer, said in a statement. Asked if that meant Bats is no longer going public, Randy Williams, a company spokesman, replied by e-mail, “Yes, that’s correct.”
Pulling the IPO capped a day of missteps for the electronic exchange, beginning just as the shares were made available. Data received by Bloomberg around 11 a.m. in New York showed the stock quoted at pennies after being priced Thursday at $16. Around the same time, a 100-share transaction in Apple was executed on Bats so far away from the market price that it halted trading in Apple.
“This is a tragedy,” James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University’s business school in Washington, said. “I’m reeling from the shock. It’s like seeing an airplane crash on takeoff. To see defeat snatched from the jaws of victory is always a sad thing.”