NEW YORK — E-Trade Financial Corp. competitors TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. and Charles Schwab Corp. said they continue to be interested in parts of the beleaguered online broker as M&A talk picked up Friday.
CNBC reported the company was in talks to either sell itself in entirety or just its brokerage operations, and that TD Ameritrade and Schwab were among the suitors.
The reports sent shares of E*Trade up 23%, or 97 cents, to $5.21 in recent trading.
Stock of the company has been depressed in the last few months, shedding three-quarters of its value this year amid mounting credit losses, writedowns and a third-quarter loss. Despite record revenue growth at E-Trade's retail business, the company's mortgage exposure led to significant loan-loss provisioning and securities writedowns.
E-Trade could not be reached for comment Friday, but the company recently told Dow Jones it had hired an outside advisor to explore its options — including a partnership.
Charles Schwab, founder and chief executive of Schwab, has said he wouldn't touch the company's banking assets but would like to get his hands on E-Trade's brokerage accounts if that were possible.
TD Ameritrade's CEO Joe Moglia said he found E-Trade's retail operations attractive, and similar to Ameritrade's own, but would have to find a deal that made sense to both sets of shareholders.
Both companies confirmed they still held those views but wouldn't confirm whether they were in talks with E-Trade.
