Now the CEO of Omaha, Nebraska,based Ameritrade is looking to buy up competitors. Last month Moglia surprised many people by paying a steep price for Ameritrade rival Datek in an all-stock deal that values the New York,based online brokerage at $1.3 billion, many hundreds of millions of dollars more than people expected Datek to fetch in this depressed market. And Moglia says he won’t hesitate to buy another discount brokerage. In the past year, he says, Ameritrade has reviewed the financials on about 25 potential acquisitions, including corporations that aren’t formally on the block. “If you’re not doing well,” says Moglia, “you may be for sale and not yet know it.”
