Schwab-TD Ameritrade Deal Has 'Technical Hiccup': Report

By Janet Levaux

News November 22, 2019 at 10:53 AM

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An official announcement from Charles Schwab about its plan to buy rival TD Ameritrade for $26 billion has been delayed, according to Fox Business Network.

Journalist Charles Gasparino said on Twitter: "BREAKING: source close to @CharlesSchwab @TDAmeritrade talks says a "technical hiccup" at board level has delayed announcement of it being final but expects issue to be overcome imminently. likely announcement today or over weekend. again no deal is done until its done $SCHW $TD."

He continued: "not sure what the technical issue is but my GUESS: TD wants more money seeing how Schwab's stock spiked on headlines of the purchase. again the source believes this is happening VERY soon, but as someone who has covered this stuff i can say its not done until the release is out."

The deal could create a firm with about $5 trillion in assets and more than 13,000 RIA clients. It was first reported early Thursday by Fox.

The news comes as the brokerage business has been racing to cut commissions to zero — which both firms moved to do last month. It also comes on the heels of Schwab's plan, announced in July, to spend $1.8 billion on USAA's brokerage and managed portfolio accounts, which have some $90 billion in client assets.

As for the chance that regulators would give a thumbs-down to a deal over antitrust concerns, Gasparino tweeted: "great point here but my hunch is that the regulators wont have an issue. prices in discount brokerage are declining rapidly. the barrier to entry are low (see @RobinhoodApp) this should be an antitrust layup $AMTD $SCHW."

— Check out Schwab-TD Ameritrade Deal Is No Sure Thing on ThinkAdvisor.

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