Exchange operator BATS Global files for IPO

By Tanya Agrawal

BANGALORE (Reuters) - BATS Global Markets Inc, the third-largest U.S. exchange operator after NYSE Euronext <NYX.N> and NASDAQ OMX Group <NDAQ.O>, filed with U.S. regulators for an initial public offering.

The IPO comes amid frenzied consolidation in the industry, with Canada's TMX Group <X.TO> tying up with the London Stock Exchange <LSE.L>, and German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse <DB1Gn.DE> battling Nasdaq and ICE's <ICE.N> joint hostile bid for NYSE Euronext.

BATS, owned by many of the world's largest banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co <JPM.N> and Credit Suisse <CSGN.VX>, and trading firms such as Lime Brokerage, plans to list its common stock on BATS Exchange Inc under the "BATS" symbol.

Some shares will be issued and sold by BATS, and a portion will be sold by some of the stockholders.

BATS, which owns and operates the BATS trading platform, was launched in 2005 as an alternative to the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

It said in its filing it intends to use the IPO proceeds for general corporate purposes.

In February, BATS Global Markets said it was taking over peer Chi-X Europe to create the largest pan-European trading venue.

In March, Reuters reported that BATS Global Markets planned to list U.S. public stocks by the year-end, opening the door for companies to float their shares somewhere other than on the Big Board or Nasdaq for the first time in years.

The company posted net income of $19.8 million last year on revenue of $835 million.

Last year, BATS Global's U.S. equities segment, its largest business in terms of revenue, had an average daily volume of about $1 billion worth of shares, giving it about 10.5 percent market share, the company said in the filing.

Kansas-based BATS Global Markets is a financial technology company that develops and operates electronic markets for trading listed cash equity securities in the United States and Europe and listed equity options in the United States.

Morgan Stanley, Citi <C.N>, and Credit Suisse will underwrite the IPO, the company said in the filing, which did not reveal how many shares it planned to sell or their expected price.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filing is just used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal and Brenton Cordeiro in Bangalore; Editing by Vyas Mohan and Ian Geoghegan)