Son Tom Ricketts is expanding the family empire to include online corporate finance. The younger Ricketts’s new venture, Chicago-based Incapital, last month began conducting primary bond offerings targeted at individual investors. Bank of America, a minority owner of Incapital, was the first issuer, selling $400 million of a planned $3 billion in medium-term notes during the new venture’s first two weeks of live operations. Ricketts hopes to announce several new corporate issuers in coming weeks. The securities are distributed to the retail brokerage clients of large securities firms, such as Merrill Lynch and Salomon Smith Barney. But online brokerages would also qualify. “Who knows?” says the younger Ricketts. “Maybe we can get Ameritrade to sell some of our bonds, too.”
