115. Interest

Gerard,

Sorry for the misunderstanding on the concept of partnerships, maybe I did not express well exactly what I meant. Perhaps there was a lack of semantic nuance from my side. What I meant was more a partnership in a legal way. I agree a partnership is more of collaboration between parties.We have these by the dozen at our brokerage department. We cooperate with many foreign brokers. And all these parties have open lines with us which we all need to receive inputs of prices, interests and news from the countries of origin of the broker. We also need this info to keep our customers well informed before we are rewarded with orders to execute.

Once in a while, a foreign broker becomes a little greedier and he approaches customers from his partner to try and also pocket the commission there. Often these efforts succeed, but only for a brief period, as the local broker will first offer new customers. And new customers could be new parties or junior traders. But the cooperation will be ruined structurally.

Recently, I read a beautiful statement which exactly sums this up – small businesses are focused on exploitation and large companies focus on exploration. Indeed, if both parties keep in mind the long-term picture, it may be fruitful, but if you are always putting out fires because one of the parties wants to steal everything from the partner, the partnership will be short-lived.

Best regards,

Erik