Saxo Bank has been bought out by Safra Sarasin

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hi everyobdy

Since late last year, Saxo Bank has been up for sale.
As of today, we know that J. Safra Sarasin has agreed to buy about 70% of the shares of Saxo Bank. These shares come from the previous stakes of Mandatum and Geely. This acquisition is still pending regulatory approvals.

As far as I know, nothing will change for customers. But of course, we will have to wait and see.

Personally, this does not change anything in my opinion on Saxo Bank and I will keep using it as a secondary broker.

What about you? What do you think about that?

Here is one of the sources on the subject:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/j.-safra-sarasin-to-buy-majority-of-saxo-in-%E2%82%AC1-billion-deal/88986423

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hi

It's worth mentioning J. Safra Sarasin now bought the remaining shares and now owns the entirety of Saxo. They bought the shares from the original founder, who will remain chairman of the board.

 

[Teo]

Hello, new to the forum and a Saxo Bank user for around a year. I have been very happy with the service and at this point, a new owner doesn't change my opinion of it. I do hope they will invest a bit more in tech maintenance as the app can be a bit buggy. However, this is really the only issue I have, everything else - user-friendly interface (vs IBKR), costs (vs anyone else, frankly, except IBKR), super fast and helpful customer service and safety (for bigger portfolios) is what makes Saxo my primary broker. I do have Etoro as a secondary platform with some money to "play" and test the markets, but it is not trustworthy and has limited assets to invest in.

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hello, new to the forum and a Saxo Bank user for around a year. I have been very happy with the service and at this point, a new owner doesn't change my opinion of it. I do hope they will invest a bit more in tech maintenance as the app can be a bit buggy. However, this is really the only issue I have, everything else - user-friendly interface (vs IBKR), costs (vs anyone else, frankly, except IBKR), super fast and helpful customer service and safety (for bigger portfolios) is what makes Saxo my primary broker. I do have Etoro as a secondary platform with some money to "play" and test the markets, but it is not trustworthy and has limited assets to invest in.

Thanks for sharing, Teo!

Are you talking about the web app or the mobile app? I use the web app, and I found it to be working well even though it's not always intuitive.

Out of curiosity, why not IB as your secondary broker since you mentioned it? It's more trustworthy than eToro.

 

[Teo]

Thanks for sharing, Teo!

Are you talking about the web app or the mobile app? I use the web app, and I found it to be working well even though it's not always intuitive.

Out of curiosity, why not IB as your secondary broker since you mentioned it? It's more trustworthy than eToro.

Hi Baptiste, I meant the mobile app. I use it as often as the desktop one. The most annoying bug is when I switch between portfolios - the list of assets will scramble. Also, sometimes at market open, there are bugs with the asset prices.
While these bugs on the mobile app can seem annoying, all the other points I mentioned above outweigh them.
Why I am not using IB? Well, trust and their customer service. My main portfolio was at my ex-employer for years and when I left, I had to choose where to move it. IBKR was the natural choice here in Switzerland, but I had many issues with customer service - they weren't responsive quickly enough and I found the user interface daunting (bearing in my mind I work in investments). So I asked an LLM what is the next best thing, and this is how I got to Saxo. Their customer service was super helpful and they handled all the communication with my ex-employer. Seeing that this portfolio is my future income (separate to my pension, which is invested somewhere else), I couldn't rely on a broker that did not act professionally.
Etoro has a small fraction of my money and I started using it more than 10 years ago to play with crypto. I do like their UI though and their charting tools, but would not entrust all my money to it.

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, this very interesting!

I only had to deal a few times with the customer service of IBKR, they were not particularly fast, but I always got an answer. I may have been lucky or you may have been unlucky.