ST. LOUIS _ Scottrade founder Rodger Riney is cashing out the shares he acquired when TD Ameritrade bought his online brokerage firm.
Riney's family voting trust received 27.7 million TD Ameritrade shares, currently worth $1.4 billion, when the Scottrade deal closed in September. TD Ameritrade announced Tuesday that it will sell the shares for Riney in an underwritten secondary offering.
The sale includes 2.5 million shares, worth $131 million, that Riney has transferred to the Paula and Rodger Riney Foundation and 2 million shares, worth $103 million, that he has transferred to the St. Louis Community Foundation.
The St. Louis Community Foundation connects donors with charities, and last year it made 4,000 gifts on behalf of donors totaling more than $40 million. Most of those funds stayed in St. Louis.
Some of the Riney family foundation's charitable giving has focused on cancer research, including at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis. In 2015, Riney was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer. The diagnosis contributed to his decision to sell Scottrade, he told the Post-Dispatch last year.
In a video posted on Siteman's Facebook page this year, Riney said he's hopeful about cancer treatments being studied at Siteman.
Riney, who is a special adviser to TD Ameritrade's president and CEO, said Wednesday that his health is good and that his cancer is in remission, although he knows "it will come back some day."
He also said his family foundation will continue to support cancer research. "I do believe that in 10 years we will be close to a cure," Riney said. "My wife and I intend to put some money behind the effort to help the research and hopefully save a lot of lives."
Riney said he also plans to support some local charities.
"I don't want to give the impression that this is all for St. Louis," he said, "but we owe a lot to St. Louis and we look forward to making meaningful contributions to funding the effort to make St. Louis a wonderful city to live and work in."
Riney founded Scottrade in 1980 and grew it into one of the nation's largest online brokerage firms from its former headquarters in Town and Country.
Scottrade had 1,800 St. Louis area employees but laid off hundreds of employees as operations moved to TD Ameritrade's headquarters in Omaha, Neb. TD Ameritrade said it plans to keep a sizable presence, including a call center, in the St. Louis region.
The firm's sale price was originally estimated at $4 billion, but TD Ameritrade's rising stock price means Riney will have realized a total of $4.5 billion.
TD Bank, TD Ameritrade's largest shareholder, paid $1.4 billion in cash for the affiliated Scottrade Bank. Scottrade was sold for $1.7 billion in cash plus the 27.7 million TD Ameritrade shares.
