CARAX, the stock brokerage firm, will soon celebrate the tenth anniversary of its operations in Monaco. Meet Stéphane Krief and Jean-Louis Didier, the company’s co-presidents.
Your business
Carax Monaco SAM is a securities brokerage management company, based in Monaco since 2006. It is a subsidiary of a brokerage firm operating in the same business in Paris since August 1999. CARAX is a technical broker specialised in negotiating orders by means of proven mathematical techniques.
We are in a regulated environment, subject to Bank of France and AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers) control in Paris, and CCAF (Commission de Contrôle des Activités Financières) control in Monaco. Our business is acting as an intermediary for various securities, shares, derivatives and debt securities. Our customer base is purely institutional, based in London and Western Europe.
We are statutorily linked to asset management companies although we do not carry out the management ourselves. Our business is clearly stock brokerage as part of our authorisation for order reception/transmission. The fact that we are highly diversified enables us to withstand cyclical effects.
Why did you set up in Monaco?
We aimed to recruit high profile professionals from the City who wanted to join the company in a favourable environment for them. English traders and brokers originally, who wanted to come to Monaco. That was when we applied for an authorisation and opened our offices in Monaco. We are pleased with this decision within a favourable business environment. Our sales representatives are highly sought and Monaco is attractive from every point of view – its tax benefits for residents, its security and its quality of life.
We now have nine employees in Monaco. At the beginning we focused exclusively on shares but now we also work on derivatives and bonds and are extending the range of products we offer our customers from Monaco. We wish to continue to develop bond products and derivatives. We will consider other asset classes if we have the opportunity.
What customer types do you have?
Our customers are institutions: hedge funds, all the major international banks actively present in the markets, or European institutions, insurance companies or pension funds, Monegasque institutions and Monegasque banks. We have no private customers.
What do you think of the Monegasque financial centre?
We have been very well received in Monaco. In 2016, we will celebrate Carax’s 10th anniversary in the Monaco financial centre.
We highly appreciate the role of AMAF, which informs players very well of all regulatory developments and changes in the business of other financial institutions, and also fosters discussion among colleagues.
In our opinion, control in Monaco is quite well balanced – it is demanding in order to protect investors’ interests but is not a deterrent.
We have noted a very strong development in money laundering prevention which has significantly improved Monaco’s image for institutional customers. For them, Monaco is now a reputed financial centre which is suitable for our customers and conducive to the development of financial activities.
