The E*Trade-Ameritrade acquisition story continued to heat up on Thursday. After Ameritrade's directors issued a release saying that the discount brokerage is emphatically not for sale, E*Trade issued a release confirming that the rival brokerage had made a takeover offer.

According to the release, E*Trade offered Ameritrade shareholders $1.5 billion in cash plus 47.5 percent of the combined company.

A combined company would count seven million customers and total client assets of $170 billion, and estimated synergies of $650 million, according to the release.

"E*Trade's business model provides Ameritrade a differentiated opportunity to take advantage of significant revenue creation by monetizing key aspects of the brokerage business through our cash management structure and by integrating customer order flow with our institutional business," stated Mitchell H. Caplan, chief executive officer of E*Trade.

Caplan would lead the combined company, with "joint participation in senior management roles and representation on the Board" wrote E*Trade officials. 

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