An interesting news item surfaced on Bloomberg yesterday, quoting an article in Danish newspaper Borsen, that unnamed US private equity firms were close to buying a 33% stake in Saxo Bank for 5 billion DKK (approximately $975 million) – valuing Saxo Bank at nearly $3 billion!Specifically, the Borsen article reports that Saxo Bank shareholder General…

And the figures are much lower than previously estimated With the recent issuing of its 2010 Annual Report, Saxo Bank has, for the first time, given us a glimpse at its monthly trading volume figures. Saxo reported that its average monthly trading volume in the second half of 2010 was $232 billion (DKK 1.3 trillion),…

Recent news that LMAX CEO Robin Osmond is leaving the company, less than half a year after LMAX launched service, is further indication that it is not easy to break into the online retail Forex industry. Despite being backed by the money and web-centric knowledge of online gaming leader Betfair (as well as investor Goldman…

LeapRate has learned that the previously announced acquisition of Geneva-based ACM (Advanced Currency Markets AG) by Swissquote was an all-cash transaction, priced at CHF 41.7 million ($43 million).Some background: On October 27, 2010 Swissquote Bank Ltd. announced that it had acquired online Forex firm ACM. This followed on the heels of new rules in Switzerland…

Saxo Bank released its full-year 2010 results at the end of last week, reporting that its profits tripled from 2009 to a record DKK 644 million (approximately $108 million) in its best-ever year. Behind the total-year numbers, however, was the fact that the vast majority of Saxo’s profits were earned in the first half of…