The Formation of ISE

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    ATP’s corporate structure and strategy was patterned after Roundtable Partners (Roundtable). Roundtable was organized by a consortium of U.S. broker/dealers who grouped together to establish two equity market making operations, one for listed securities and one for OTC stocks. Roundtable was so successful after just three years of operation that it went public (in an initial public offering) as Knight/Trimark Group, Inc. in mid-1998. Renamed Knight Trading Group, Inc., the company is the largest Nasdaq/OTC market maker and among the largest Nasdaq intermarket (listed) market making firms, as measured by volume. The basis of this success is the collective order flow of the broker/dealers who were original investors in Roundtable. Unlike equities, there is no third market for options; the creation of an exchange format is the only mechanism by which ATP could replicate the proven model created by Roundtable.