If you follow Major League Baseball at all, especially the business side of the game, you probably know that the Ricketts family is on the verge of buying the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field at a price tag of nearly $1 billion. Joseph Ricketts bought into little investment firm called First Omaha Securities back in 1975, which has grown into TD Ameritrade. That he would have made enough money to buy this storied franchise from a business - online stock trading - that basically didn't exist 15 years ago is pretty remarkable.
First Omaha was one of the first discount brokerages, a mode of business that started up when the SEC deregulated the brokerage industry back in 1975. Always ahead of the technology curve, the copmany - by then known as AccuTrade - allowed its customers to make trades by touch-tone phone in 1988, the first firm to do so.
So when the Internet started to take off in the early 1990s, Ricketts' company was ready. A little company called K. Aufhazer had been the first to offer Web-based stock trades in 1994, but it was quickly snapped up by Ameritrade the following year. By 1996, Ameritrade was letting its customers do online program trading.
After going public in 1997, Ameritrade bought up many of its smaller rivals, and eventually bought TD Waterhouse and changed its name to TD Ameritrade. The company - which, remember, was making trades over the phone 15 years ago - is now valued at $10 billion. That's how you make enough money to buy a baseball team.
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