Former KVB Kunlun senior executive Ryan Tsui appointed Operations Director at Japan’s SBI FX

The intrinsically domestic market focus of Japanese FX giants extends beyond the widely held understanding that the 35% of global retail FX trading volume that is conducted by Japanese companies is distributed solely among Japanese customers.

Indeed, Japanese companies not only have a client base made up completely of Japanese customers who are loyal to compatriot companies, but their staff and management are also homogenous – until now.

Hong Kong-based Ryan Tsui has joined Japanese FX company SBI FX as Operations Director, however unlike the veritable heavyweights of the retail FX industry GMO Click, DMM Securities and Monex Group whose operations are firmly rooted in the land of the rising sun, Mr. Tsui will remain in Hong Kong in his senior executive capacity.

Mr. Tsui left KVB Kunlun in October 2015 after completing just over two years at the company as Global Sales Director which likely was not an easy task during a period in which KVB Kunlun experienced significant losses and whose senior management issued a pre-emptive warning to investors with regard to trading the shares of the company in anticipation of a significant loss in the spring of 2014.

Volatility has blighted KVB Kunlun’s share prices since the summer of 2014 when the company reported a 45% downturn in revenues in May that year, resulting in a loss of 7.1 million HKD ($915,000) in its half yearly report, which followed the issuance of said pre-emptive warning to shareholders and potential investors by its directors, advising caution when trading KVB Kunlun shares.

Some degree of recovery ensued, with KVB Kunlun reporting a record net profit for the nine months ended September 2014, performance in the third quarter of 2014 having recouped the losses made in the first half of the year.

In February 2015, Chinese financial giant CITIC Securities made an offer to purchase a 60% stake in KVB Kunlun, which by that time had become an M&A target.

CITIC Securities offered paid 780 million HKD for 1.2 billion shares at that time, which equates to just 0.65 HKD per share, which is just 8 US cents per share.

The acquisition by CITIC Securities of 60% of KVB Kunlun which was made in early 2015 had not been without a degree of wrangling either. Some six months later, a further offer from CITIC Securities to buy out the existing public shareholders expired, resulting in a 29% decrease in KVB Kunlun’s share price during the course of June 2015.

The acquisition was completed during the first half of 2015, with CITIC Securities holding a 60% stake in the company, however CITIC did not reissue an offer to buy out the company’s public shareholders.

Mr. Tsui’s tenacity during such a period is perhaps testimony to his managerial abilities, and to his experience in the retail FX sector having joined KVB Kunlun in August 2013 from the Hong Kong operations of British spread betting and CFD firm GKFX, where he was Managing Director for the Asia Region. FinanceFeeds conducted detailed research into the Chinese network of IBs during the course of the past year, and GKFX is one of the companies with a very large network of introducing brokers (IBs) across Chinese second tier development towns, most of which were established during Mr. Tsui’s tenure during which he set up and managed Asian hubs consisting of 3 offices in mainland China and 1 office in Hong Kong.

Prior to joining GKFX in 2011, Mr. Tsui was Customer Service and Sales Manager for the FX division of Goldenway Investments in Hong Kong, preceded by 5 years at FXCM Asia as Assistant Sales Manager between April 2005 and April 2010.

A graduate of City University Hong Kong, Mr. Tsui has a BBA in Accounting and Management of Information Systems.