FX week in review: eToro share sale and Australia legal trouble, Spotware and CAPEX hires

Gerald Segal 0 Comments August 6, 2023

FX and CFD industry news headlines were dominated this past week by Israel based, social trading focused broker eToro.

First, FNG reported that eToro was planning to help its early investors and employees achieve liquidity and sell some shares in the company, by arranging a planned $120 million secondary share sale.

And next, eToro ran into some legal trouble in Australia, as the company was sued by Australia financial regulator ASIC around its CFD product.

There were also the usual dose of executive moves, sports sponsorships, broker results, and B2B partnerships to report.

Some of the most read and commented-on FX industry news stories to appear over the past seven days on FNG included:

Reported First at FNG… ASIC sues eToro in crackdown on high-risk CFD products. Australia financial regulator ASIC has announced that it has commenced proceedings in the Federal Court against online investment platform eToro Aus Capital Limited (eToro), regarding its contract for difference (CFD) product. This marks the second time in as many months that eToro has raised the ire of international regulators. In July eToro was hit with a €1.3M fine by the Italian Competition Authority for misleading advertising.

eToro arranging $120M secondary share sale at $3.5B valuation. Israel based, social trading focused online broker eToro is apparently arranging for its employees and other existing shareholders to sell some of their shares in the company. Many of the company’s employees and investors were expecting to “get liquid” when the eToro first announced plans to go public in a (since canceled) SPAC merger at a whopping $10 billion valuation back in March of 2021.

CFI becomes front-of-shirt sponsor of Sheffield United. CFI Financial Group and Sheffield United have announce a significant commercial partnership for the upcoming Premier League 23/24 season. The Dubai-headquartered global multi-asset broker, CFI Financial Group, has agreed to an initial one-year term Premier League principal partnership with the Blades to become the club’s front-of-shirt sponsor.

StoneX FX/CFD revenues increase 17% in strong Q3 of FY2023. Brokerage group StoneX (NASDAQ:SNEX) has released its financial results for its fiscal third quarter of 2023 (StoneX has a September 30 fiscal year end), indicating that the company had a very strong quarter, covering calendar April-thru-June 2023. In its Retail FX and CFDs business operated via the Forex.com and City Index brands, StoneX saw a 17% QoQ increase in revenues from $61.8 million last quarter (January-to-March 2023) to $72.1 million.