Well this is interesting. As reported on LeapRate, Friday saw the issue of a press release by Copenhagen-based CFH Group – owner of the CFH Clearing, CFH Systems, and Tradable brands – that CFH had reached an agreement to acquire a 50% stake in Boston Technologies as well as its prime brokerage operation Boston Prime. CFH said that the stake was acquired from BT co-founder Kevin Millien. CFH did state that the acquisition “is expected to close within days, pending final due diligence.”
Both Mr. Millien and CFH CEO Christian Frahm were quoted in the press release making statements implying impending cooperation and synergies between the two companies.
Fairly straightforward.
Or maybe not.
Now comes word from none other than Mr. Millien’s former partner in Boston Technologies, current BT CEO and majority shareholder George Popescu, that:
– Boston Technologies management / majority owners were unaware of the deal, and have not been involved in any due diligence,
– the stake in question is a minority stake and is non-voting, and
– Mr. Millien has not been with the company for a year (left in June 2013) and (as far as BT is concerned) does not have any updated information about the company,
– BT would be surprised if any deal between Mr. Millien and CHF Holdings would close, given that the stake is a minority stake (implying that it is actually less than 50%) as well as non-voting, and that BT until now was unaware and uninvolved.
We’re awaiting a response from CFH, will share with our audience when available. In the meantime, below is the Boston Technologies statement on the matter.
We are unaware of any such deal and company is not involved with any due diligence in association with this matter.
We would like to give you our Boston Technologies official stance on this matter to clarify situation to the public:
This news once again confirms that Boston Technologies continues to be very attractive. We are glad to see that there is so much interest in our company and business. Neither the majority owner (George Popescu), or any current Executive has been contacted regarding any possible CFH deal. BT can confirm that Kevin Millien has not been employed and is neither a director or an officer of any of our companies since June 2013, Therefore, he has had no involvement in any company operations since that date.
Boston Technologies enjoyed a very strong 2013. In 2014, our volumes have continued to grow. We have also recently released an entirely new Bridge and beginning in 2014, we localized our IT infrastructure in Japan, Hong Kong and London to provide faster and better execution. We are also about to enter 2 completely new business lines. We continue looking to the future as a global industry leader of innovative technology and trading services.
We would be surprised if any deal between Mr. Millien and CHF Holdings would “close” considering it would only result in a minority stake with no voting rights. There have been no communications with BT about this. Any possible sale of Mr. Millien’s minority ownership will not affect anything in the day to day operations, long term strategy or any M&A transactions for BT.
George Popescu
CEO & Founder of Boston Technologies Inc. and Boston Prime Ltd.