Gain Capital (Forex.com) announced today that it has acquired Open E Cry (or “OEC”) from optionsXpress, which is a unit of Charles Schwab. Open E Cry offers mainly futures trading through its OEC Trader platform. OEC clients can also trade forex, options and equities via the same platform.
OEC holds $98 million in customer assets, has approximately 8,000 open accounts, and in 2011 did $13.6 million in revenue. OEC was founded in 2002, and was acquired by optionsXpress in 2008. optionsXpress itself was of course acquired by Charles Schwab in 2011.
No financial terms of the transaction were released. However, we believe that the sale took place for just a few million dollars.
For more details and lists of M&A transactions in the Forex sector dating back to 2006, including data and analysis of valuations and multiples paid, see the the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.