Partners of consulting firm Shift Forex have been offering M&A advisory services to Forex companies via Berkshire Capital.

Continuing the trend of key industry news around IPOs and M&A is a LeapRate exclusive that sheds more light on the recent story around Pepperstone’s potential IPO or sale.

As we wrote earlier, Pepperstone disclosed to the WSJ their engagement with US investment bank Berkshire Capital. After further research we have found there is more to the story.

Very quietly, the partners of forex industry consulting firm Shift Forex have been offering M&A advisory services via Berkshire Capital, as evidenced on their website. Interestingly enough, at their FXIC 2013 event in New York they also announced the collaboration with Berkshire Capital. We can only assume that one of the first clients of their joint M&A advisory offering is Pepperstone.

When contacted by LeapRate about the story, Justin Gilmore, founding partner of Shift Forex said, “Due to confidentiality agreements, I cannot comment on the details of our involvement with any specific M&A clients. However, I can confirm that the partners here at Shift along with Greg Berman our CFO have a formal partnership with Berkshire Capital for FX-related M&A activity.”

When asked why Shift entered the investment banking space, Gilmore answered, “Given the current wave of consolidation, we saw a need for FX-specific investment bankers. So, we formed a relationship with the team at Berkshire in order to meet the needs of our clients, regardless of whether they’re on the buy- or sell-side of a transaction.”

Regardless of a Pepperstone IPO or possible sale, Shift’s involvement in M&A only suggests there are more transactions coming down the road. And with the most recent CFD broker IPO, Plus500 (LON:PLUS) trading at an all-time high, the groundwork has certainly been laid for other retail forex brokers to go public.

Should be an interesting few months coming up in the Forex industry. Stay tuned to LeapRate…

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.