The Bucket Shop Report
During the fall of 1996, Midas and Kim Fournais became front page news when a series of investors suffered devastating losses using Midas' wealth management services. One of the investors was Karsten Ree. Like many of Midas' other investors Karsten Ree was a successful businessman, and one of Denmark's wealthiest men. Reportedly, he felt cheated by Midas into fictive investments. Ree suffered losses exceeding 800.000 DKK in one month. The article series further uncovered that Kim Fournais had a background in MSC Gruppen, an unlicensed entity that collapsed after defrauding its wealth management customers that was left behind with a 200 million DKK loss. According to the investigation, after the collapse Kim Fournais was subsequently employed by Lannung Bank, and remained with Lannung until it was sold in the collapse of its holding company, Accumulator Invest. Accumulator was owned by the white-collar criminal Klaus Riskjær Petersen, and Kim Fournais was subsequently fired by the bank's new owners. The periodical and later print media describes how employees without formal qualifications or after unsuccessful attempts to obtaining licenses or jobs at established institutions were attracted and employed by Midas, later Saxo Bank.

On October 10, 1996, Danish national television, DR, aired the investigative journalism programme Rapporten on bucket shops. The documentary showed a sales trader from a bucket shop called Bernstein applying a high sales pressure technique on a handicapped man in a wheelchair, pushing what was presented as allegedly ficitive investment products. Additionally, Kim Fournais was asked point blank if he had stolen customer funds, which he denied. The result was a massive public outcry and Midas underwent a criminal investigation by the Danish special police unit for serious economic crime, Bagmandspolitiet. Midas hired the high profile star lawyer John Korsø Jensen of law firm Mazanti-Andersen, who convinced the police that nothing illegal had taken place. John Korsø Jensen was later offered a seat on the board of the company. Midas turned abroad to Sweden, in an effort to sell options-based products to a Swedish clientele, and the company now hired Swedish sales people to work in its Copenhagen office.

The Breakthrough: 2000s
The company now turned to the Internet, and in 1997 Midas launched its first online trading platform for currencies, ultimately paving the way for Saxo Bank's current success. The first trading platform was called MITS. It was later replaced with what is today the SaxoTrader platform. Midas decided to change its name, and obtained a Danish banking license in 2001, using the name Saxo Bank. Saxo Bank began expanding its online presence focusing primarily on retail forex, and at the same time it moved to new headquarters in the Copenhagen suburb of Gentofte. In the beginning of 2003, Saxo Bank decided to focus its online investment services offering on the relatively new customer segment, retail forex. Since the time-to-market of new banking software products is considered a challenge in the competitive financial services market, Saxo Bank decided to outsource its software development. It chose Reksoft in St. Petersburg, Russia, which worked on the software from August 2003 to December 2006.

Success and global expansion
In March 2004, Saxo Bank was in the process of global expansion, when it had to halt its business in Australia. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission, ASIC, passed regulation requiring an Australian bank license to offer foreign exchange to private customers. Saxo Bank had to terminate all its Australian retail clients and passed the accounts to two Australian brokers. Saxo had particular problems with the Australian authorities, as Danish legislation did not allow the country's regulator to sign a bilateral agreement with them. On September 17, the issue was resolved, and ASIC granted Saxo a license to trade in Australia. In the beginning of September 2004, Saxo launched its first US white label partnership, according to director Daniel Darst, after seeing increasing interest from retail traders there.
In 2005, Saxo Bank reported a 39% increase in pre-tax profits, net profits rose DKK 161 million (EUR 21.6 million) to DKK 223 million. In FXweek, the CEO commented, "Once again, we have experienced growth in earnings in our foreign exchange trading and have more than doubled our earnings in other business areas, contracts for difference and futures," Lars Seier Christensen said. "We can only be pleased with our progress, which also reflects the general growth in number of clients during the year." Saxo said the growth was due to direct client business as well as its many white-label partnerships, and at the time, Saxo Bank was still looking to headcount, having already expanded its number of employees by approximately 150 in 2005. Saxo Bank started buying advertisement space in the FX industry periodical, FXweek. In 2005 it won FXweek's e-FX Award, in the category Best Retail Platform.
In 2006, Saxo Bank started expanding its physical presence worldwide, primarily through buying its own white label partners. Today, Saxo Bank has offices in London, Geneva, Zurich, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore and Marbella. Same year, Saxo Bank made significant changes to its structure, as it sought to boost its retail forex business with hires from the Danish business world. Internal restructuring took place, with its former head of marketing becoming head of white label partnerships. Lars Seier Christensen said the changes were made to reflect growth at the bank, "The hires are part of the ongoing process of growing from a small specialized operation to a global business with more than 500 staff."

In September 2007, Saxo Bank announced acquisition of its Swiss white label partner, Synthesis Bank. In late May, Saxo joined forces with the French brokerage Cambiste, later to be renamed Saxo Banque France. During 2009, Saxo Bank opened ofices in Milan, Prague 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 Bank will have around 13-14 foreign sales offices, up from eight last year, Lars Seier Christensen told Dow Jones in May 2009. The bank is planning two additional office openings in Amsterdam and in an undisclosed European city later in the year.

In August 2008, Saxo Bank hired Eric Rylberg, former head of the Danish facility service and cleaning company, ISS A/S, as their new CEO. The founders retaining their executive titles as well, and shortly after assuming office, Rylberg implemented a rationalization plan and reduced the staff by around 1/3. Since then, Saxo Bank has been growing through add-on acquisitions and startups in the hope that face-to-face customer interactions will boost business. At the same time, the Bank has been building an asset management team through acqusitions. In June 2009, the Bank purchased the entire share capital of Capital Four Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A/S and 51 % of the share capital of Global Evolution Fondsmaeglerselskab A/S. The two acqusitions followed the acquisition of Sirius Kapitalforvaltning earlier that year. The asset management activities of the Bank now include management expertise for Danish bonds, Danish equities, corporate bonds and emerging market bonds.

Although Saxo Bank remains an investment bank not dependent on a loan financing business, on October 6, Saxo Bank decided to join the Danish Sector Fund (Det Private Beredskab). As such Saxo Bank is encompassed in the two-year guarantee for all deposits with and unsecured claims against Danish financial institutions, provided by the Danish government. Saxo Bank declined to participate in the Government's Credit Package, saying it would lose money if it received capital from the the state-funded Credit Package.

source www.wikipedia.org