Multi-asset online trading platform company TradeStation – which itself was just recently acquired for $411 million by Japan’s Monex Group – has expanded its FX presence in the US with the acquisition of IBFX for $17 million. IBFX is the third largest US-based retail Forex firm, following FXCM, Oanda and Gain Capital (Forex.com).
The folks at Monex were kind enough to give us details of the acquisition, including:
- Deal size of $17 million.
- IBFX has daily volume of about 93 billion Yen ($1.2 billion), or about $25 billion monthly (and TradeStation is now doing about $8 billion monthly).
- IBFX’s had LTM Revenues of about $21 million, and a net loss of $3 million (following a net loss of $8 million in 2010).
- IBFX has 27,000 funded accounts (IBFX’s latest CFTC filing showed about 11,000 US accounts), and holds about $37 million in client assets.
- IBFX has 106 employees.
- CEO Todd Crosland owned 59% of IBFX; Spectrum Equity owned 40% (which cost them about $40 million, so as per above they are taking a large writeoff on the investment).
For more details on Forex M&A and publicly traded multiples and valuations see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report for 2011.