[Bronwen Kausch] Tradek.com, an online stockbroker, will make its appearance on the venture capital sector of the JSE today. In a reverse listing into the Dechold cash shell, Tradek.com is listing with an issue share price of R1.
Making use of real-time data, Tradek.com allows South African investors to trade on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. This process would seem rather tricky, considering the time differences, US tax regulations and exchange controls. To circumvent these problems, Tradek.com has entered into an association with New York-based brokerage Seaport Securities Corporation which will be available to investors to open accounts and process trades on a 24-hour basis.
The company began trading in December 1996 as MST Online and has processed around R3 billion in equity transactions since inception. The service offers clients financial information online and trade at discounted brokerage rates.
Tradek.com`s online client base was offered share options at the placement price of R1. CE Paul Theron says this had the effect of pushing the client base up to above the 10 000 level for the first time.
The JSE still insists on a human interface with Marketworks, the front-end of the JET system, but it won`t be long before this is no longer the case and entirely independent trading will be possible for Internet investors.
Tradek.com will have to quickly capitalise on its position as one of the largest Internet trading operations in SA. ITWeb columnist Patrick Lawlor has commented that it wouldn`t be long before one of the major multinationals entered the fray and offered similar services with more finances and bigger systems behind it.
Tradek.com expects to report pro forma profit after tax for the 12-month period ending 31 March 2000 of about R3.6 million, equating to earnings of 3.91 cents a share.
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