“We increased marketing spend before the IPO to increase our brand visibility and gain traction, iForex’s CEO, Itai Sedah, told Finance Magnates in an interview after the broker published its first results as a public company, but “we did not gain that benefit of being a public company after the listing postponement.” The broker is now “very careful and measured in increasing marketing spend, and is also working on AI integration.” Meanwhile, it is starting an expansion drive and will “start with a Category 5 licence in the UAE.”Singapore Summit: Meet the largest APAC brokers you know (and those you still don't!)“Extra Marketing Spend Did Not Convert into New Users as We Expected”iForex, one of the very few publicly listed CFD brokers, released its 2025 numbers with a net loss. Although its revenue was very similar to the year before, IPO and marketing costs pushed the company into losses.Last year was also mixed in terms of trading demand. “In the first half of the year, we saw very good volatility and very encouraging numbers,” said Sedah. “Then Q3 came with extremely low volatility… In Q4, we saw normalised volatility again.”The broker’s client acquisition costs also jumped to $695 last year from $401.The rising cost was due to the broker’s increased marketing spending before the IPO aimed at “gaining additional clients, especially in Europe, which is a very expensive market,” according to Sedah. “Once we needed to postpone the IPO, we did not gain the benefit of being a public company, and therefore that extra marketing spend did not convert into new users as we expected. So this was the main reason for the increase in the client acquisition cost.”Read more: Newly Public iForex Had a Stressed 2025, Turned a $3.2 Million Loss as Costs MountHe highlighted that the broker went back to its “normal levels” and is now “planning to be very careful and very measured in increasing marketing spend.”According to the latest results, the broker spent $42.5 million on selling and marketing, up from $35.9 million a year ago. Its media expenses increased by $4 million to $9.4 million, compared to $5.5 million in 2024. About $3.5 million of cash marketing expenditure was deployed in the European market.Original Plan Was Only a 10 Per Cent Float, but “That Would Be Extremely Low”He also explained that the broker’s IPO postponement created some disruption in its strategic planning, especially in the marketing budget. “We anticipated the June IPO and started increasing marketing spend in preparation for that IPO,” Sedah added. “Then, when the IPO got postponed, we could see the expected uplift from that marketing budget.”The February IPO made iForex the first pure-play CFD broker to go public in almost a decade. Although eToro went public last year, the broker has been positioning itself as a multi-asset platform, with CFDs being only a portion of its broad offering.iForex, however, has a very low free float in the market, making the stock almost illiquid.“The strategy was to take the company public because we believe that becoming publicly listed will assist the business,” Sedah said. “It is first and foremost a strategic move to assist the business.”“Originally, we planned to offer a minimum of 10 per cent float,” he revealed. “We understood that would be extremely low and probably not in favour of our new investors and partners, and therefore we increased it to 20 per cent.”The majority of shares in iForex are still held by its founder, Eyal Carmon, who did not sell any of his holdings in the IPO.iForex’s origin can be traced back to 1996, when it operated under a different brand name. It received its Cyprus licence in 2011 and its BVI licence in 2013.“The founder and employees, who hold an additional approximately 20 per cent, are under lock-up provisions for the next year or two,” Sedah added. “We have a hard lock-up of one year and then an orderly market period of an additional one year. I assume that when the lock-up is lifted, some of the employees or maybe the founder will sell their shares so that the free float will increase eventually.”“We Do Not Advertise Locally”“We are now on track to proceed with our strategic plans,” Sedah said. One of the priorities of iForex, as mentioned in its financials, is geographical expansion. “We are in advanced stages of starting the process of gaining a licence in the UAE.”iForex is becoming another CFD broker, to get the Cat 5 license in the UAE, rather than becoming a full local broker with a much more expensive Cat 1 license. The Cat 5 license, however, will allow it to promote and market services there locally for its offshore unit. For the broker, that arrangement appears sufficient now.Read more: CFD Brokers Flock to Dubai, but Few Go All InThe UAE expansion is also very strategic, as the Middle East is one of the top markets for the broker. Out of its $49.1 million total revenue in 2025, $14.7 million came from the Middle East and Africa region, followed by $18.7 million from East Asia, which is primarily Japan. Another top market for the broker is South Asia, dominated by India, which brought in $9.4 million.Interestingly, iForex does not hold any licence in any of its top markets and operates there on a reverse solicitation basis.“We work through our BVI licence on a reverse solicitation basis,” Sedah stressed, adding: “We have obtained legal opinions from all of the main markets in which we onboard clients.”“We do not advertise locally in the UAE (or anywhere we do not have a local licence). Now we want to enhance our presence in the market with a local licence, a local presence in the market, and local advertising.”Sedah also stressed that iForex works across the Middle East and described them as “very interesting markets.”In Japan, too, the broker “does not advertise locally”, yet, according to Sedah, it has “a very good reputation and a very strong brand name there.” He added: “People recommend iForex on different forums, and that is how clients reach us, and we are able to service them and onboard them to our platform.”Japanese traders, however, are different when compared to other markets. Sedah explained that, although iForex operates under the same brand there, its Japanese-language website is slightly different and clients there “are very keen on having all of the information, reading through everything.”However, unlike the UAE, iForex does not have any plans to secure a Japan licence in the near future.One high-growth region, however, missing from iForex’s key markets is Southeast Asia. Sedah revealed that the broker is “constantly examining and will take the necessary steps within our strategic plans in the next year or two to enter new markets in that region,” adding that “it is definitely a very exciting and interesting region.” Several other brokers targeting Southeast Asian markets have experienced rapid growth recently. The most interesting factor is that although iForex uses reverse solicitation in all of its key markets, its marketing budget went up significantly.While the broker does advertise in those markets, Sedah explained that it “advertises on global websites, financial websites that have different language support and are not within those countries.” It also has affiliate relationships, but not with local websites.“An Investment in Our Human Resources”Another rising expense for the broker was staff costs. About 50 per cent of the broker’s employees are currently based in Israel, while the rest are spread across other international offices, including those in Cyprus and Greece.The increasing cost, however, appears to be linked to the growing strength of the broker’s marketing division. It onboarded a new Chief Marketing Officer last year and, Sedah revealed, “he recruited a lot of talented people to the marketing department.”“We thought it was a good time to refresh the marketing and bring in talented people,” the CEO added. “Usually, talented people are costly, so it is an investment in our human resources.” Another factor behind the rising staff cost is the strengthening shekel.iForex, interestingly, is increasing its staff while several other brokers are reducing theirs, citing the impact of AI on their operations. Finance Magnates earlier reported on staff reductions at eToro, FXCM/Tradu, IronFX and FP Markets.“We do not have any plans to cut or reduce our headcount at the moment,” Sedah said, “but we are keeping an eye on AI and its capabilities, and hopefully that can also assist us in improving efficiency.”“We are in the early stages of examining a few very interesting projects,” the CEO continued. “We are working on AI, which we hope to integrate, a very exciting AI tool, into our platform in the next couple of weeks, maybe a few months. We are looking into diversifying the products that we offer, but it is still in the very early stages.” This article was written by Arnab Shome at www.financemagnates.com.

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