LeapRate Exclusive… LeapRate has learned that FCA regulated Retail Forex and CFDs broker GKFX has raised £6.54 million (USD $8 million) in a series of transactions during the months of September and October.
Kasim Garipoglu, GKFX
The money, most of which was formally raised late last week, was invested into GKFX by controlling shareholder Kasim Garipoglu, a 31-year-old Turkish investor and Internet entrepreneur, and CEO Serkan Arli.
The company, to the best of our knowledge, has been doing fairly well financially so that this is planned expansion capital (more on that below). GKFX saw explosive growth from mid 2014 to 2015, with Revenues climbing more than three-fold from £16.3 million (fiscal year ended August 31, 2014) to £51.9 million last year. GKFX earned a net profit of £6.8 million last year, and exited the year with capital of more than £16.4 million. Another fiscal year has come and gone since the last financial report, but we understand that the company has continued to grow and do well in fiscal 2016.
So why the capital injection?
We understand that the company, which has recently undergone a changeover in senior management, has some fairly serious expansion plans which may include acquisitions.
GKFX recently saw the departure of CEO Jacob Plattner who had joined the company last year after five years at Alpari UK. The company had planned to onboard former ETX Capital executive Joe Rundle to take his place, but Rundle decided to join ThinkMarkets (with all the aforementioned moves exclusively reported by LeapRate). Instead, the company hired Brian Myers who had recently resigned as VP Sales of OANDA Europe.
With the new team now forming around Brian Myers, the company’s shareholders are looking to continue aggressively growing the company to bring GKFX into the big leagues of Retail FX – although with annual revenues above $60 million the company might already be said to be there.
Geographically, the London-based GKFX has been fairly strong in its founders’ home country of Turkey, the Arab world, and the Far East, but not in the UK or Europe generally. GKFX’s sponsorship of AC Milan has certainly helped build the company’s brand in Europe, but it still has a long way to go.
With more capital in hand, GKFX and the new management team will have more flexibility and options to both increase marketing and branding footprint in Europe (as well as in markets where it is already strong), and to pursue acquisitions where they make sense.