BATS Global Markets Withdraws Initial Public Offering

BATS Global Markets Inc. withdrew its initial public offering Friday after a day filled with cancelled trades and uncertainty.

The company, which priced its 6.3-million-share deal at $16 Thursday night, had been scheduled to trade on the BATS Exchange, but ran into problems from the moment it opened.

The stock was halted in the morning for "clearly erroneous" trades after it opened. BATS issued an alert on its website that it was "actively investigating an issue." The exchange issued an alert at 10:48 a.m. EDT that there were "system issues in symbols range A through BF."

BATS didn't explain what went wrong with the trading in its shares. In a statement just ahead of the market's close, the company's chief executive said the deal was being withdrawn.

"Although our affected market has reopened, in the wake of today's technical issues, which affected the trading of certain stocks, including that of BATS, we believe withdrawing the IPO is the appropriate action to take for our Company and our shareholders," said Joe Ratterman, chairman, president and CEO of BATS Global Markets.

Even though BATS had priced its IPO, it was still able to withdraw the deal because the trades weren't scheduled to settle until March 28.

Besides BATS, shares of Apple Inc. (AAPL) were temporarily halted in the morning for five minutes after erroneous trades were made on BATS's exchange. According to FactSet, orders placed through the BATS Global Markets came in well below where Apple had previously been trading.

-By Lynn Cowan, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-257-2740; [e-mail]

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