AvaTrade wants to buy Stratos, the operator of FXCM and Tradu brands, from Jefferies Financial Group, Finance Magnates Intelligence has learned, and has also allegedly made an offer for the business. However, a crypto exchange is now showing interest and has allegedly made an offer.
This came after Finance Magnates recently reported that Jefferies is reportedly considering selling Stratos, which operates the two contracts for differences (CFD) brands.
AvaTrade is allegedly buying the entire Stratos business, except for FXCM Bullion Limited, a specialised affiliate based in Hong Kong that handles the accounts and servicing of Chinese and Hong Kong clients.
However, the financial terms and conditions in both parties' offers remain unclear.
Finance Magnates approached AvaTrade to know about the status of the deal, but did not receive any confirmation.
CFD Brands' Ownerships Are Consolidating
Whoever is the winner of the bidding war will put them in control of the legacy FXCM brand, which is still a prominent name in the CFD industry. The sister brand, Tradu, meanwhile, is new and appears not to have taken off.
Earlier this year, the Tradu brand stopped accepting new clients and started to migrate existing ones to the sister FXCM brand.
Tradu also launched a crypto exchange and is holding a MiCA license in Cyprus.
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FXCM's Decade-Long Owner Exits
FXCM was founded in 1999 in New York and was among the first brokers to offer retail traders online access to forex markets. It eventually became the largest retail forex broker in the US and Asia and the first in the sector to list on the NYSE in 2010.
Jeffereies took an interest in FXCM in January 2015 with a $300 million bailout when the Swiss franc crisis wiped out $225 million in client equity at the CFD broker overnight. With that, Jefferies secured a 49.9 per cent voting interest.
Nearly nine years later, in September 2023, Jefferies gained full ownership after foreclosing on FXCM's parent company, GLBR, which had defaulted on a credit facility backed by its equity stake in FXCM, making FXCM a wholly owned subsidiary of Jefferies.
FXCM was subsequently rebranded as Stratos Group in 2023 under the ownership of Jefferies.
Finance Magnates reported last December that Stratos was preparing to lay off more than 100 employees, and an internal source suggested that the future of the Tradu brand may be under internal review. Brendan Callan, CEO of FXCM and Tradu, however, attributed the move to advances in agentic AI.
