Leading Australia based Retail FX and CFDs broker Axi is looking to expand in its home market, with its parent company AxiCorp Financial Services Pty Ltd making a bid to buy publicly traded SelfWealth Ltd (ASX:SWF), which bills itself as Australia’s most popular low-cost trading platform.
The Axi bid for SelfWealth is at AUD $0.23 per share, which values SelfWealth at AUD $52 million (USD $34 million). Axi’s move follows a competing (but slightly lower) AUD $0.22-per-share bid made for SelfWealth by Bell Financial Group Limited (ASX:BFG), an Australia based full service and online broker.
Prior to the Axi and Bell bids emerging, SelfWealth shares were trading in the AUD $0.12-0.13 range for the past several months.
The markets clearly believe that some sort of bidding war (or higher offer) is coming, with SelfWealth shares closing Thursday higher than both the Axi and Bell bids, at AUD $0.25.
Axi has indicated that it is prepared to negotiate and sign a binding implementation deed in an expedited manner. The Axi proposal is not subject to due diligence or any financing conditions.
SelfWealth was founded in 2012, and has been publicly traded on the Australian Securities Exchange since 2017. In its latest fiscal year (ended June 30, 2024) SelfWealth reported Revenues of AUD $27.6 million, and Net Profit of AUD $3.4 million. SelfWealth has 129,000 Active Portfolios, with Funds under Administration of AUD $10.7 billion.
Axi is a multi-licensed and multi-regulated online broker, with tens of thousands of active clients in 100+ countries, served by over 400 staff across eleven global offices. Axi is a private company, owned and run by its senior management following a 2022 Management Buyout of Axi led by CEO Rajesh Yohannan.
We will continue to follow this story as it develops.
