Major Etrade News From March 2008

Top Etrade News: Chairman Layton Appointed to CEO Post

Donald Layton was named CEO of Etrade (ETFC) in early March. Previously, he was ETFC’s Chairman. He has over 30 years of experience in the industry, having just came from a long tenure at JPMorgan.

You can watch a recent video of him here.

He says in the video that E-trade is basically two different companies–a brokerage, and a lender.

The brokerage business is doing great. It’s up 22% year-over-year in trading volume.

But the lending business is in trouble. They expect to write down an additional $1.5B over the next three years.

There was lots of speculation that E-trade will be split up and sold to other companies. Layton says that that’s very unlikely, as it would not work.

Instead, he plans to slowly work the $12B of debt down to a more manageable level.

Etrade shares fluctuated between a low of $3 and a high of $4.48 for the month.

My Take on the E-trade News

After watching the video, I liked Donald Layton. He seems experienced, genuine, and conservative.

E-trade’s brand name and it’s brokerage business are it’s best assets. Their monthly report for March highlighted the growing strength in it’s brokerage business.

Still, despite the moderately good news at Etrade, I don’t own any shares, and I don’t plan on buying any. I just don’t know enough about their debt to feel comfortable owning it.

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