Do not invest more money than you can afford to lose.
Lars Seier Christensen, co-founder and stakeholder in Denmark’s financial services company and forex broker Saxo Bank has sold his 25.71% stake to the Chinese automotive company Geely Group, which also owns Volvo and the London Taxi Company.
According to estimates of the Danish business daily Berlingske Business, Christensen, who held the largest stake in the privately-owned Saxo Bank, would pocked DKK 2.47 billion ($364.2 million) from the sale. The publication also suggests that some minority stakeholders would exercise their tag-along rights and would also sell, thus bringing Geely’s stake in Saxo to 30%.
“Geely Group has shown an impressive ability to foster sharp and solid profitable growth in their portfolio companies, and it has a deep understanding of Scandinavian business values and culture,” said the Co-founder, stakeholder and Chief Executive Officer of Saxo Bank, Kim Fournais.
“Geely is well known for its strong power of execution, compliance awareness and entrepreneurial spirit. I look forward to taking Saxo Bank to new highs together with our shareholders and employees. I am confident that partnering with Geely creates an even stronger foundation to capitalise on the many global opportunities and not least in the growing Chinese and Asian markets,” Fournais added.
“We look forward to partnering with Saxo Bank through this transaction to expand Geely Group’s activities in the financial services sector,” said Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Geely Group, Daniel Donghui Li. “We expect to deliver group synergies from the development of financial services both within Geely Group and the wider Chinese market,”
Saxo Bank, founded in Copenhagen in 1992, is a brokerage firm and a market maker. It holds a banking license from Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA). It offers trading in more than 30,000 instruments, including forex, binary options, CFDs, stocks, futures, and bonds through its proprietary online trading platforms SaxoTrader and SaxoTraderGO.
In March the brokerage reported that in 2016 it had a net profit of of DKK 302.4 million in 2016 from a net loss of DKK 644.6 million a year earlier. The group’s operating income stood at DKK 2.9 billion in 2016, posting a significant growth of 37.8% over the year.