Banking owners of currency trading portal FXall have hired Goldman Sachs to sell a stake in the venture to private equity firms, an unidentified source has told Reuters.
The multibank foreign exchange platform is currently owned by 17 banks. Reuters says that Goldman has been hired to sell off a minority stake, but adds that some firms are angling to realise the full value of the business with a complete sale.
Such a move would add to a recent surge of M&A activity in the sector, which has seen Knight Capital take on privately-held Hotspot FX and EBS piquing the interest of Icap.
FXall, which saw trading volumes of $6.7 trillion in 2005, declined to comment.
The Internet-based system is one of the few surviving success stories of the dotcom business-to-business boom. It is owned by banks including Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, UBS and Goldman Sachs.