Yesterday, LeapRate reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) has once again been making decrements in its stake in CFD broker Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS), having taken its shareholding down to 6.15%.
Today, Plus500 has reported that JP Morgan has made a further sale of shares in the firm, taking its ownership down to 5.99%.
JPMorgan Chase & Co’s interest in highly efficient CFD broker Plus500 has varied tremendously since the company’s very successful entry into London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market last year. At one stage during the summer of 2014, JP Morgan Chase & Co’s interest stood at over 14%.
Since the summer of last year when JP Morgan Chase & Co stood as one of the major shareholders of the firm, the financial conglomerate has been reducing its stake, with its lowest interest having been registered in February this year at 4.66%.
The North American multinational investment bank has since made a number of transactions recently which have resulted in shareholdings in the firm fluctuating around the 5% mark, whereas in December, JP Morgan Chase & Co made a purchase of 3,242,889 shares, representing a 7.8% interest, taking the total number of shares held by JP Morgan to 8,981,221 at that time.
An important consideration regading that particular transaction is that it could have comprised likely a combination of JP Morgan buying Plus500 shares for its own account, a perfectly bona fide practice, as well as for JP Morgan clients who prefer to hold their shares of certain publicly traded companies such as Plus500 in the form of CFDs, for tax purposes. Under a circumstance such as this, JP Morgan would purchase the shares, and subsequently issue corresponding CFDs to those clients.
Since then, JP Morgan Chase sold 3,024,198 shares in Plus500 on February 19, 2015, leaving the investment bank with 5,957,023 shares in Plus500, which is equal to a stake of 5.19%.
Following the transaction which took the firm’s shareholding to 5.99%, JP Morgan holds 6,885,232 shares in Plus500