I honestly have no idea which election you mean.
The UK and US had general/Presidential elections last year.
The local elections in the UK are in May but I assume you donāt mean those. Similarly the German and EU elections are not going to affect things here eitherā¦
I am an investor (and customer) since 2019. Most of my shares were bought at Ā£0.84324 per share. I decided to wait a few days after the announcement to really think about what must have happened, and to process my feelings about it. I think I am now in a somewhat stable position, so I am sharing my insights here for discussion and, honestly, to vent a little.
Freetrade was built on the promise of being an app for small investors. Low fees, no complex instruments, no dodgy practices: what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Freetradeās mission was to enable ordinary people to get a share of the pie in financial markets without either becoming experts, or paying extortionate fees to managers/advisors.
This happened in a moment where interest in financial markets had never been higher, and where everyone could simply download an app and start investing. From the very start, it is a marvel how easy Freetrade made it, how it managed to avoid most complexities while getting full regulatory approval.
Look at T212ās interface, and tell me that doesnāt suck. In its intention, Freetrade was the Apple of investing, not the Linux. As such, it faced significant threats: the first, and main one, is that people that invest a lot of money are normally advanced users, more likely to seek platforms with advanced features or instruments that Freetrade, per its ethos, would not offer. Indeed, most people in forums or Reddit would often complain about this or that advanced feature being missing, but offered by competitors. Freetrade even listened to them sometimes - I believe, a mistake.
Iāll be frank: I think that what happened is that this project failed. It turned out that it cannot be done, not in a profitable way at least. I donāt know why, and I think that the senior managers owe us a long email where they explain why this was the best decision. I hope they will send it, at some point, because not all investors were looking just for profit. I think that Freetrade delivered on its mission of building a place for simple, ordinary investing free from hidden fees and scams very well, and I will be extremely sad if it eventually stops doing it.
With this premise, then I actually agree that the best way to make sure that all the work done so far would not disappear was to sell to a bigger group, negotiating that Freetrade would keep operating under its current form, and brand, at least in the short term. Sure, IG Group must have plans to eventually sell other things to Freetradeās customer base, but I hope they will realise and keep the value of having a simple investing app, for simple users that invest a few thousands.
The extremely low share price for the acquisition is the main evidence I have for not believing that crowdfunding investors were ārug-pulledā. When you want to sell and fly away on a golden jet, you do that when the price is high. Doing it now can only mean that Freetrade was not going in a good direction. If this is what it takes to save what can be saved of the project, so be it.
Just my two cents anyway. I hope that one day a new, sustainable Freetrade can emerge.
Revolut and Robinhood are not part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
I made more today on Trumpās memecoin than holding FT stock for 6 years.
Viktor sold most of his shares in the Series B secondary sale, circa 400K shares at Ā£3.25 or whatever the price was.
In hindsight we all should have done the same 
RobinHood UK still has protections based on US protections and cash to a much higher degree thank UK FSCS
In my own opinion, Iām disgusted with what Freetrade has done.
Doubled your moneyā¦ not too shabby
I just opened S&S ISA at IBKR
Forum users and investor numbers are small compared to overall users of freetrade.
@Viktor spouting about customers being most important is probably due to the mathematics of it all.
We have an exit. Iām thankful for that. Still sucks to back the vision from almost day one but I have to warn people, my moaning is the vision I saw for freetrade, this sale only makes sense if they were going under so maybe Viktor made a blinder to get us money back rather than complete loss.
To be honest I doubt it was Viktorās decision, at least not entirely. Heās not the largest shareholder.
Also in hindsight probably a red flag for your company if the CEO holds less stock than an ~L4 SWE
From what I can tell Victor has been doing a great job, but this does seems like a poor incentive structure.
Iām a returning customer not a shareholder. Iām back due to last autumnās 1% bonus incentive for transferring in a SIPP. Almost too good to be true offer? Iām expecting my cash by the beginning of February. I wonder how many others are coming due for their 1% and how easy or otherwise this is going to be to fund.
Great choice
Do you remember how long this took?
So, he rejoined the board days before the acquisition was announced, only to be departing once it has been confirmed? Sounds like something that needs explaining.
Thatās very strange I agreeā¦
My explanation is that the deal was already 99% done and he was not aware of it.
Plus why Adam left the Board in June? Founders usually remains on the board. Maybe Adam would have fought for a better deal
Itās red flag that he (and other significant shareholders) allegedly sold most of his shares in earlier rounds. Not exactly a sign of confidence. Lack of skin in the game means that incentives are not aligned for the best outcome.
Iāll caveat that with the probability that there may be unexercised options and/or growth shares too although hard to see how any hurdle would have been reached with the exit valuation
I am shocked by this sale. Itās going to be a loss for me as I had invested in the last round of funding in 2023 at Ā£2.60 per share.
Please count me in if there is any chance of legal action.
Some at the Ā£2.50 level but the EIS relief / loss relief mostly covers that hit.
For those nursing big losses take it from me that nothing is a better learning exercise for the long run than losing your own money.