6th February 2008
City Index Group Limited (‘City Index’)
Acquisition of FX Solutions LLC (‘FX
Solutions’)
London, UK, February 6th: City Index Group, a leading provider
of retail derivative trading services including CFDs, FX and spread
betting, is pleased to announce the acquisition of FX Solutions LLC
(www.fxsolutions.com) in an all equity transaction.
FX Solutions, based in Saddle River, New Jersey, provides a
premier retail foreign exchange (‘FX’) electronic trading platform
for all major currency pairs. FX Solutions was founded in
2001 by Thomas Plaut and Robert Cortright, two industry leading
executives with over 40 years combined experience in foreign
exchange trading. Messrs Plaut and Cortright will continue in
central roles in the enlarged group.
FX Solutions has been recognized for 3 consecutive years by
Inc. magazine as a part of the annual Inc. 500 “America’s Fastest
Growing Private Companies” list. Only 11 of 500 companies
achieved that status, and in 2007, FX Solutions was the only retail
FX broker to make the list.
Between December 2005 and December 2007 FX Sol’s EBITDA
(earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation)
grew at a cumulative annual rate of over 60 per cent. In
early 2007 Francisco Partners, the US private equity house,
invested over US $100million in FX Solutions.
The combined Group will employ over 400 staff across 6 offices
in the UK, United States, China, Singapore and Australia and has
partnership relationships throughout Europe, North America,
Australia and the Middle East, transacting approximately 1.6
million trades per month. The Group is regulated in Europe,
the United States, Singapore and Australia.
Mr Clive Cooke, CEO City Index, commented on the
transaction:
“The FX Solutions team have built a highly successful business
with clients in over 50 countries and we are delighted to be able
to bring our two companies together. This transaction will
enhance and strengthen our current product offerings to our retail
clients and institutional business partners and accelerate our
expansion into new geographical markets.”
Thomas Plaut Co-founder and Co-CEO of FX Solutions,
commented:
“We are very pleased to be joining the City Index Group, an
ideal partner to take our business to the next stage. City
Index’s diverse and worldwide operations will open new
opportunities for our business and we know the merger with City
Index is going to be a positive for all involved – especially our
customers.”
“We are delighted to be participating in this combination,
which creates a new, multi-product leader with best in class
technology, serving a rapidly growing, global market,” said David
Golob, Partner with Francisco Partners.
Further information
City
Index
U.S. Contact for FX
Solutions
Alison
Cashmore
Josh Inglis, Strategics
00 44 207 107 7275
00 1 312-346-2007
00 44 7740 068
580
00 1 312-504-7677
About City Index Group
City Index is a leading provider of CFD, foreign exchange,
options and, in the UK, spread betting services. The Group
trades primarily under the City Index, Finspreads and IFX brands
and also provides a fully outsourced white label solution to
numerous partners.
In September 2006, City Index acquired IFX Group plc (‘IFX’),
the London-based international business which provides
institutional and retail clients with a range of innovative
leveraged financial products, principally in the foreign exchange
and global equity markets. The offer valued IFX at
approximately £57.9 million.
City Index was established in 1983 and its ultimate parent
company is IPGL, a private holding company. IPGL’s other
interests include an indirect shareholding of approximately 20 per
cent. in ICAP plc, the FTSE 100 listed interdealer broker with a
market capitalisation of approximately £4.3 billion, of which
Michael Spencer is a director and Chief Executive
Officer.
www.cityindex.com
About FX Solutions LLC
FX Solutions is a leading US-based online foreign
exchange broker serving both retail and institutional
customers. The Company provides IB's and White
Label Partners FX trading and risk management in over 100
countries through its Global Trading Systems (GTS) platform.
Regulated by the CFTC and NFA, FX Solutions’ custom-engineered
suite of applications includes one-click trading,
automated execution of orders, a proprietary price
feed and competitive fixed-spread pricing - resulting in
consistently low executable spreads. FX
Solutions has websites and complete customer support
in four languages.
FX Solutions’ Global Trading System platform, known as GTS,
was built to be scalable and flexible, serving the needs of retail
clients and institutional partners. The GTS platform provides for
over 99% automated execution of all orders as well as a suite of
professional trading features and tools. Recently, FX
Solutions announced the launch of two new products: GTS Web,
a web-based platform and FX AccuCharts 7.0, a charting package that
has over 150 indicators and allows for trading from the
charts. Later this year, the Company plans to launch GTS
Mobile, a mobile trading platform.
www.fxsolutions.com
About Francisco Partners (‘FP’)
Francisco Partners is a leading global private equity firm
focused exclusively on investments in technology and
technology-enabled businesses. With approximately $5.0
billion of committed capital, Francisco Partners is one of the
world’s largest technology-focused private equity funds. The
firm was founded to pursue structured investments in technology
companies undergoing strategic, technological and operational
inflexion points. Francisco Partners targets majority and
minority investments in private companies, public companies and
divisions of public companies, with transaction values ranging from
$30 million to $2.0 billion.
www.franciscopartners.com