Hi everyone

Saxo Bank has sent me over this very interesting interview with Lars Christensen, Co-CEO at Saxo Bank, where Lars explains Saxo’s plans to bolster asset management business and to expand business through new offices worldwide.

Is a quick and interesting read

Francesc

MAY 13, 2009, 9:55 A.M. ET
INTERVIEW: Saxo Eyes Asset Mgmt Add-On Buys, Opens Offices
By Anna Molin Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Denmark’s Saxo Bank A/S is set to increase its geographic and commercial footprint with several new European office openings in the pipeline and more add-on acquisitions on the radar, co-Chief Executive Lars Seier Christensen told Dow Jones Newswires.

The on-line trading bank, which specializes in currencies, equities, contracts for difference (CFDs), futures, options and other derivatives, is transforming its business model to capitalize on the fragmented asset management market and is hoping eventually to generate growth across the Atlantic.

“We really want to widen our scope to encompass more traditional investment opportunities, more management-like products, still in an on-line environment … but combined with more classical wealth management competencies,” Saxo’s co-CEO said.

He added that the Copenhagen-based bank’s recent acquisition of Danish wealth management company Sirius Kapitalforvaltning, with a management portfolio of some EUR670 million, is an example of the type of small add-on acquisitions Saxo will be eyeing in coming years.

He said that over time asset management may become a “substantial” part of Saxo’s total business.

“We would certainly like to see it move into double-digit percentage figures in a few years,” he said. It is currently in the low single digits. “Clearly that market is much greater than the markets we have traditionally catered to,” he said, adding that he sees scope for an on-line technology revolution within asset management similar to the one stock markets have undergone.

“Wealth management is a huge fragmented market where none of the major players are even approaching a 5% market share,” he said. “Our view is not to replicate what everybody else does, but to give it a technology and transparency angle that perhaps is less prevalent in traditional wealth management,” he added.

Opening Offices In Prague, Amsterdam

On Thursday, Seier Christensen will travel to Prague to open Saxo’s latest new sales office. The bank is also planning two additional office openings in Amsterdam and in an undisclosed European city later in the year, he said.

The launches follow two recent branch openings in Milan and Dubai, where it broke ground as the first Danish bank to establish a presence in the Gulf Corporation Council region. By year-end, Saxo will have around 13-14 foreign sales offices, up from eight last year, Seier Christensen said. It also has offices in the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Singapore, Australia and Japan.

The bank is growing through add-on acquisitions and startups in the hope that face-to-face customer interactions will boost business. In Amsterdam, Seier Christensen said it recently bought a partner in a deal resembling the acquisition of France’s on-line brokerage Cambiste in May 2008.

Most of the branches, he said, are already profitable with some staffed by employees from its Copenhagen office.

“A place like Milan or Prague is profitable from day one,” he said. “The areas we pick are areas where we have a reasonable success rate from the point of departure - otherwise we wouldn’t chose those. So in a way there’s no traditional heavy investment phase. The offices are small and cost overheads moderate and typically covered by our existing business.”

The new locations were chosen either because of their importance to the financial community or because of good interest in that area, Seier Christensen said.

The large oil and capital reserves in Dubai looked particularly attractive, with scope for further growth in the region which it hopes will contribute some 10% of total revenue in three to four years, up from 5%.

“We see the Gulf region as having big potential for our type of business,” Seier Christensen said. “Whether that will lead to further presence in the region is certainly a possibility.”

Next year, Saxo may also branch out into south and north America, where it currently has “less business than we would like,” the executive said.

Cutting-edge technology has long been Saxo’s trademark - it has won numerous awards for its forex services and retail platform - and Seier Christensen said the bank is working to come up with new technologies.

He said these could include tools along the lines of Saxo’s TradeCommander, a system with arithmetic trading models that can be modified based on individual indicators, and TradeMaker, a recommendation generator that provides entry, target and stop price levels to make quick trades.

“We think the next big differentiation will be a platform that actively and more intelligently in an automated fashion helps people make better decisions,” he said. “It’s not just about facilitating the execution (of a trade) but also to facilitate the decision-making process. That’s where the focus is going be in coming years.”

Company Web site: http://www.saxobank.com

-By Anna Molin; Dow Jones