GFT lets more people go, company’s restructuring

12 Comments

Back in July we interviewed GFT’s CEO Gary Tilkin who was speaking about navigating his brokerage through turbulent times. Well by all indications the turbulent times are already here  - the industry is suffering from extremely low volumes which directly affect brokers’ income.

GFT laid off about 20-30 employees in the past few days and recently had few executive directors part with their jobs as well. Apparently this is part of the company’s planned restructuring as GFT had this to say following our inquiry:

“GFT has recently released a small percentage of our employees as a result of our systematic improvement in efficiencies across many of our departments. While there are many external factors that affect our business, such as lower industry wide volumes and increased competition, this measure was largely done to realize the gains in efficiencies that we have planned for and continue our overall plan to provide our customers with the greatest level of service in the most efficient manner.

GFT is currently aggressively developing and implementing new growth strategies so that we can continue to give our customers the best possible service and support and gain market share in the current market and position ourselves for growth in all market environments. We remain committed to the highest standards of integrity in our business and look forward to servicing an ever expanding customer base.”

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12 Comments on this post

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  1. memyself&giulia said:

    It’s so funny reading these people blaming the chrisis and competitions. Cmon let’s make a statement which makes sense… Even a joint statement from a RFEID coalition…eheh something like this:
    “As we have made millions in forex by taking the other side of the trades, and after burning millions of millions of dollars from small investors, we’re struggling now to find new morons to screw”. As a consecuence, we cannot afford sponsoring big racing cars and teams, and maintain a crew of pepole just to sell a dream..”

    October 2nd, 2012 at 2:00 pm
  2. Michael Greenberg said:

    heh, that’s one way to make a statement :) but in a way you are right, although not all brokers are evil and trade against you, the bigger brokers are indeed too inflated and need to downsize – seems that only gft is doing this at the moment

    October 2nd, 2012 at 3:30 pm
  3. Richard Y said:

    GFT forgot to thank the U.S government for effectively killing the FX trading market in this country.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 4:28 pm
  4. Matthew Carstens said:

    @memyself… — if you are going to point fingers at the big bad market maker, at least get your facts straight before you do. This article is specifically about GFT who (at least in the 12 years I was there) wasnt spending hoards of cash on sports teams, racing or the sort – in fact Gary was extremely careful with his cash. And if you honestly take a look at their long track record they are easily one of the cleanest firms around.

    Though the turnover lately that can be contributed to a host of factors, and their statement is a bit comical due to it obviously being created by someone in PR/compliance which anyone takes with a grain of salt – it will be interesting to see how these cuts and the effect of loosing some of their key personal will affect them going forward.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 4:42 pm
  5. Matt Coz said:

    Carstens – I agree with you 100% on both your statement about market making and about Gary. Most people don’t understand the benefits and necessity of a market maker. (NYSE, NASDAQ now FINRA, bond and commodity markets, ect are ALL market makers). Once a retail client makes a trade the market maker can’t make the market go against them, it’s just typical human nature to “water our weeds and cut our flowers”. Most people take quick profits and let their losers run because “they will come back”. If person A sells their house to person B, what controls the value of that house after the transaction, person A or the market? Same things as stocks, fx ect. Nothing illegal about market making, it is required otherwise there is NO market to trade in. Greenburg – explain how a market maker trades against you, but read what you type before you hit submit. Most people have to place blame somewhere for their horrible trading and risk management.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 5:43 pm
  6. Michael Greenberg said:

    Mitt – ‘trade against you’ is what most people call the market making concept, and we both know exactly what it means so don’t make it look like the cleanest thing in the world. it’s much more transparent on exchanges as you mention, but far from it in fx, on the other hand it’s not as bad as people often think and certainly not all brokers are evil.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 6:14 pm
  7. Matt Coz said:

    Mike – Not sure if you were replying to me or Candidate Romney? Anyway, “Most people” translates to amateur retail traders with $5000 in their account, real players understand the market making concept. But glad you added that last line. And I do enjoy your site Mike, you are usually first to break news, stories or rumors.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 6:46 pm
  8. Asaf said:

    It’s unfortunate to hear but it does seem like the industry has been going through a transition in the past year and brokers need to adjust their business plans to expect much less volume and fewer customers. The changes that we see are that more profitable traders enter the market as it becomes more regulated and more established so account turnover is much less but profitability and retention improve. so this is a good change and it seems like GFT are taking steps to adjust.

    October 2nd, 2012 at 9:36 pm
  9. Michael Greenberg said:

    retail traders by my definition are $250-500 :) $5k would make them ‘institutional’ traders in most brokerages… these people do indeed not understand the concept and are quick to call anyone who’s a market maker – a fraud.. market education is next to impossible but we are trying
    thank you for your kind words

    October 2nd, 2012 at 10:25 pm
  10. Jeff said:

    I am not sure how this turned into a market maker vs STP conversation, but I will be happy to contribute. An STP desk is simply acting as a middle man for other market makers (ie investment banks, dark pools, etc). There is ALWAYS a market maker when you are trading spot fx, it is just a matter of trading with one directly or indirectly.

    I am not saying that one model is better than the other, I am just saying it is a bit of a silly argument since this an industry built on market making.

    Richard Y – spot on with your comment.

    October 4th, 2012 at 2:53 pm
  11. RG1 said:

    GFT is a private company , a very , very , private company.

    Between FXCM filing a shelf registration statement to free up $120 million in capital , and GFT essentially eliminating it sales and marketing operations in the US, it sounds a lot more like it may be being prepared for sale.

    October 13th, 2012 at 5:40 pm
  12. Michael Greenberg said:

    anything’s possible, we’ll try to be the first to know

    October 13th, 2012 at 6:42 pm

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