FXCM INC Chief Executive Peter Cruddas declined to comment on timing or valuation but said the company was firmly on track to sell shares, undeterred by the impact of a conflict with clients over losses in January's Swiss franc turbulence.
He said the appointment of investment banker Manjit Wolstenholme and former Deloitte and Ernst&Young partner Malcolm McCaig was another step towards a flotation in 2016.
"As far as we are concerned there are no real issues for us around the IPO. It comes down to the state of the market at the time," he told Reuters. "Structurally, commercially, we're on track for launching next year. I would say we are about half way through the preparations."
Financial media have speculated an initial public offering (IPO) could value the company, roughly 90 percent owned by Cruddas and 10 percent owned by Goldman Sachs, at as much as 1 billion pounds.
Cruddas set up the firm as a foreign exchange broker with a 10,000 pound investment in 1989. Rival companies include IG Group (>> IG Group Holdings plc) Denmark's Saxo Bank and FXCM Inc (>> FXCM Inc).
Underlying pretax profit for the six months to the end of September rose by 88 percent to 26.2 million pounds. Greater volatility in markets helped the company, Cruddas said, with a sell-off in China, for example, doubling the number of trades seen from the average in two days in August.
In a sector that is increasingly focused on providing sophisticated trading technology to investors through apps on their phones and tablets, Cruddas said that almost half of trades were now done on mobile devices.
Cruddas and Financial Director Grant Foley said CMC was still in the process of settling a number of the conflicts with clients resulting from the losses generated by the 40 percent swings in the franc's value on Jan. 15.
Members of a client group fighting the company said earlier this month that the company had offered to refund them all of the losses resulting from its repricing of losing trades, after an initial ruling against CMC by Britain's Financial Ombudsman.
Foley declined to say whether the company would also refund clients in other jurisdictions.
(Editing by Keith Weir)
By Patrick Graham
