Penson Worldwide has announced its intention to sell Australian subsidiary, PFSA, to BNY Mellon for some $32 million. PFSA provides clearing services in Australia, holds an Australian Financial Services License and is a market, ACH Clearing and ASTC settlement participant of the Australian Stock Exchange and a trading participant of Chi-X Australia.
The agreement is for a share purchase transaction from which Penson expects to realise a gain of about $14 million when the deal closes in the fourth quarter this year.
“We are pleased to have reached agreement with a firm committed to continue to provide Penson Financial Services Australia’s (PFSA) correspondents with the high level of service to which they have been accustomed, while also continuing to provide access to Australian markets for Penson correspondents,” said Philip Pendergraft, CEO of Penson.
The sale of PFSA continues Penson’s implementation of the series of initiatives which it announced this August and follows other concluded business including the completion of the combination of Penson’s US broker-dealer and US futures businesses into a single entity and the expansion of the scope of Penson’s Master Services Agreement with Broadridge, which stipulates that the schedule with Penson's UK arm can be terminated.
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