Following recent media reports, the Board of CMC Markets Plc (LON:CMCX) today confirmed that it is in the very early stages of evaluating the merits of a managed separation of the leveraged and non-leveraged divisions of the Group in order to unlock shareholder value.

The Review is consistent with the Board’s continuous evaluation of strategic opportunities to maximise shareholder value.

On 10th June 2021 the Group announced with its full year 2021 results that as part of its strategy beyond leveraged trading (CFDs), it will be launching its new UK investment D2C and B2B platforms next year, offering investment products, physical shares, tax wrappers and third party funds.

Further to this, on 16th September 2021, the Group announced that the B2B white label deal with ANZ was ending and will be replaced by the acquisition of over 500,000 of ANZ’s share investing clients with total assets in excess of £25 billion (AUD$ 45 billion), increasing combined Group client assets to approximately £40 billion, with approximately 1 million investing clients.

As a consequence of this acquisition, the growing size of investing clients and their assets, the launch of the new UK investment platform, and its growing B2B platform business, the Group boasts two strong underlying businesses, leveraged and non-leveraged. Both businesses have benefited from significant investment and each have strong growth prospects in sizeable markets with excellent competitive positions.

CMC Markets says:

“In this context, and in discussion with its advisers, the Board intends to undertake an exploratory review to consider the viability of a managed separation of the Group’s non-leveraged and leveraged businesses in the interests of maximising shareholder value. As these discussions are exploratory at this stage, they may or may not lead to a managed separation of these businesses in due course”.

The Board is expected to start its review before year end and complete it by June 2022 and will update the market in due course.