ODL Securities, the leading independent FOREX, derivatives, equity, spread betting and commodity trading house has sold the US division of its profit making US Forex business to Forex Capital Markets LLC (FXCM).
The move follows the current and planned implementation of new and more complex regulatory rules that have made it increasingly burdensome for all Forex Dealer Members to operate in the United States. These include increases in the minimum amount of regulatory capital that a Forex Dealer Member must maintain - up by three times over the past year and due to increase further in May to $30mn.
A strategic decision was therefore taken by ODL to use its financial capital more efficiently to fuel its growth in other parts of the world.
As part of its expansion strategy ODL Securities will open new JV offices in Turkey and Australia in the very near future, and expand its operations in Japan and Canada. In the UK head office, the business has been restructured to improve its offering with a focus on multi-lingual customer service and support (ODL now has clients from over 100 countries).
Announcing the sale, Graham Wellesley, Chief Executive of ODL Securities, said: “This has been a hard decision for us to make, ODL Securities Inc. is a very successful and profitable operation, but we could not justify disproportionately supporting one of our smaller subsidiaries.
“We remain firmly committed to expanding our international reach and to that end we have dramatically strengthened the management and resources of our UK Sales and Servicing Teams as well as developing new ventures in Europe, Asia and Australia. We remain profitable and our strategy will continue to focus on growing the business in 2009.”
