Scope out this interesting interview with FXCM's CEO Drew Niv over here. Some of what he says supports my opinion of why FXCM acquired ODL. I speculated that "FXCM is buying here not just a very strong brand name and a client base but also ODL’s presence in the UK, its White Labels and Introducing Brokers and also its Prime Brokerage business which now offers Hotspot, Lava, Integral and Currenex."
Q: What are your plans regarding your recent Acquisition of ODL?
A: Well we are spending the next 6 weeks integrating the systems and pulling over the ODL clients into the FXCM Trading Platforms. Then we will be integrating the two companies together. And we will be adding many of the products from ODL to the global menu of the FXCM products. Clients worldwide will be seeing an increasing of offered products. ODL has many more products than FXCM and this is also a reason why we acquired ODL. This is definitely something where we are very excited about it. As well we are bringing better products to the European markets. So I think European clients will certainly have a huge benefit out if it.
Q: Who is your target audience?
A: 90% of our customers are individual currency speculators. 10% of our revenues come from institutions like hedge funds and banks.
I'd think FXCM is more diversified than that but it appears that it's still primarily retail oriented.
