Odey Asset Management now owns 25% of Plus500

London-based wealth management firm Odey Asset Management has continued to demonstrate its faith in retail FX firm Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS), having this week increased its stake in the company to 25%.

Odey Asset Management, which was founded in London in 1991 by Harrow-educated hedge fund manager Crispin Odey who had a personal net worth of £1.1 billion as of April 2015, has long since owned a sizeable stake in Plus500, however the increase in shareholding to a quarter of the firm’s share capital represents a significant milestone.

Plus500 rose to prominence by adopting a model in which no sales or retention departments were enlisted, the company purely relying on digital marketing and a low-touch approach, which is very unusual in the FX industry.

The company, which was founded in Haifa, Israel by six alumni of the Northern Israeli city’s Technion Institute of Technology, namely Gal Haber, Alon Gonen, Elad Ben-Izhak, Shlomi Weizmann, Omer Elazari and Shimon Sofer,  listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2014 and by the spring of 2015 had become a lean operation with a market capitalization of $1 billion.

Odey Asset Management had shown great interest in the firm, taking its stake to 19% by May 2015, however it is clear that this is to continue further as the 25% threshold has now almost been crossed.

In terms of direct voting rights, Odey Asset Management holds 24.76%, which is distrbuted between specific funds within Odey Asset Mangement, with the CF Odey Absolute Return Fund holding 17.32% (split between 3.79% in Ordinary Shares and 13.53% in CFDs) and Odey Allegra Developed Markets Fund holding 4.08%. All other funds hold less than 3%.

Photograph of Haifa metropolitan area courtesy of Yucatan.