Business Insider/Jessica Tyler
IEX founder Brad Katsuyama.
- It hasn't been easy for upstart stock exchange IEX to lure companies from the big exchanges for its new listings business.
- IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama explained his pitch to companies on Tuesday at Business Insider's IGNITION 2018 conference.
It hasn't been easy for upstart stock exchange IEX to lure companies from Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.
The exchange had been trying to get its listings off the ground since the end of 2017 before it snagged its first listing, Interactive Brokers, in September.
Brad Katsuyama, IEX's founder, is laser-focused on building out its business. A boost in the number of companies listed on IEX would likely mean an increase in the amount of trading that takes place on it, as stocks are more likely to trade on the exchange on which they are listed.
Katsuyama explained how he's trying to coax companies to ditch the big exchanges and list on IEX at BI's IGNITION 2018 conference on Tuesday.
"We're the only stock exchange that aligns the interests of investors and companies," he said. "When we talk to companies, we say you and the investor are the two most important parts of the market and we have tremendous support from investors and we want to build a relationship with you. Most of them haven't been talked to that way ... we're different, we stand for something, it's a value-based decision and a lot of CFOs are trying to make value-based decisions. So the trend there is in our favor."
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The trading community is in a tizzy over a proposal by America's upstart stock exchange