New merger creates Britain’s second largest electronic retail brokerage
With £18 billion in assets under management and 300,000 retail clients across Britain, Canadian stock and equity experience meets British ingenuity
Britain is not only the number one electronic trading center in the world, but a continually developing one as large, established firms become increasingly UK-centric in their growth plans.
As last week drew to a close, Britain’s second largest retail electronic brokerage was created by Interactive Investor having begun preparations to buy TD Direct Investing, which will result in a new entity that has 300,000 customers and £18 billion in assets under management.
British traders and investors are by far the most astute and active in Europe, with Britain being home to many loyal and conservative investors and traders, compared with Europe’s non-financial markets orientation.
The deal will be financed by JC Flowers, the venture capital group with a financial services focus. It will become the majority shareholder in the new business.
Hargreaves Lansdown remains the largest electronic trading firm in Britain, with £62 billion in assets under management and a market capitalization of £5.69 billion.
Interactive Investor is a well known name in Britain, however, rather like Hargreaves Lansdown, is not part of the usual retail FX fraternity that interact with each other on a regular basis.
The company provides an execution-only online investment platform, under the designation ii, which enables users to manage & trade shares, funds, ISAs, SIPPs, as well as to engage in spread betting and FX trading, whilst also providing editorial content, news and market analysis.
Interactive Investor is based in Aldgate, London and was founded in August 1995 as “Interactive Investor International” the site was redesigned and the name was changed to Interactive Investor. The site claims to have about 7.4 million unique visitors each year and provides via its website a portfolio tracking tool, share research tools, alongside its electronically tradable instruments which are very much angled toward a British audience.
New competition within Britain’s retail sector has been growing in the form of low-cost “robo adviser” services which use algorithms to devise cheap portfolios for savers with smaller sums, however in this particular sector, whilst a new relative giant has been created, it will still remain well and truly in the shadows of Hargreaves Lansdown’s giant empire.
