Billionaire trader Alex Gerko earned £682mn from his firm XTX Markets in 2024, according to filings cited by the Financial Times.
£1.28bn Shared Among Founder and Traders
A total of £1.28bn was distributed between Gerko and 30 quantitative traders last year. The group of traders received £597million while Gerko took the largest share.
The payout was reportedly the biggest in XTX’s ten-year history and represented a 71% increase on the £747 million distributed in 2023. The number of profit-sharing traders rose from 25 to 30 over the year.
Read more: XTX Markets Posts 50% Profit Jump to £1.28 Billion on Trading Surge
XTX recorded £1.3bn in post-tax profits in 2024, a 54% rise on the previous year. That performance put the firm among the UK’s most profitable private businesses.
The company uses large-scale computing power to exploit small price discrepancies across global markets. It reportedly processes around $250bn worth of trades every day and operates on currency, debt, equity, commodity, and crypto markets. Its models are powered by 25,000 AI chips, mostly sourced from Nvidia.
Leadership and Investments
Gerko owns about 75% of the company and has traditionally managed XTX alongside a co-chief executive. Former JPMorgan executive Hans Buehler was the most recent co-head before stepping down this summer to return to academia, the FT noted.
XTX is investing €1bn in a new data centre in Finland to handle its growing computing needs. Gerko is now among the UK’s wealthiest people and the country’s largest individual taxpayer, according to Sunday Times estimates.
Last year, he lost a legal battle with Britain’s tax authorities over the treatment of a deferred payment plan, Bloomberg reported. The ruling left him facing a £22.5 million ($29.1 million) tax bill, which he has argued amounts to double taxation.
Related: UK's Court Rules against Billionaire Quant Trader Alex Gerko in £22.5M Tax Dispute: Report
The case centered on Gerko’s time at GSA Capital Partners, where he worked between 2010 and 2015. Appeal judges concluded that Gerko and several other traders must pay income tax on their share of trading profits, rejecting their challenge to the tax authority’s position.
The dispute involved whether profits from a deferred payment scheme, first allocated to an internal investment unit before being distributed to the traders, should be subject to both corporation tax and higher-rate income tax. The court’s decision affirmed HM Revenue and Customs’ stance, ending a years-long battle over the structure.
