Regulated LLP Moves Toward Dissolution
Mako Financial Markets Partnership LLP has applied to be struck off the UK corporate register, bringing the regulated entity closer to dissolution after management had already decided to wind down its remaining cash-equities trading business.
The limited liability partnership filed its voluntary strike-off application with Companies House on August 20. Companies House also lists a First Gazette notice dated September 1, 2026, the formal notice that begins the period in which interested parties can object before dissolution proceeds.
The filing concerns Mako Financial Markets Partnership LLP, company number OC306611, rather than the wider Mako trading group. The partnership was incorporated in January 2004 and is the same legal entity fined £1.66 million by the Financial Conduct Authority last year over financial crime control failures linked to cum-ex trading.
Mako’s broader operations continue through other entities. Its current website describes the group as a liquidity provider to global derivatives markets, with a particular focus on options market making. It lists offices in London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore, Sydney, Brisbane and Chengdu.
For the UK, Mako’s current regulatory disclosures identify Mako Global Derivatives Partnership LLP, rather than the entity being struck off, as the FCA-authorized partnership responsible for UK financial promotions. That entity operates under FCA reference number 231154. Mako also maintains regulated operations through separate entities in the Netherlands and Australia.
The latest accounts for Mako Financial Markets Partnership LLP show that the process of closing the business was already underway well before the August strike-off filing.
Management decided in early 2025 to wind down the partnership’s principal proprietary cash-equities activity, according to its 2024 financial statements. Its Irish branch was also being closed, with employees expected to transfer to an Irish branch of Mako Global Derivatives Partnership LLP.
Because the partnership was ceasing its principal activity, the 2024 accounts were prepared on a basis other than going concern.
The financial statements nevertheless showed positive net assets rather than the balance-sheet profile of an insolvent business. Net assets attributable to members stood at about $6 million at the end of 2024.
Net trading income increased to $350,000 from $190,000 a year earlier, while the annual loss narrowed by roughly one-third to $700,000 from $1.04 million.
The partnership reported $9.12 million of debtors, including $7.17 million due from members, along with $237,000 in cash. Current liabilities totaled $1.28 million.
The accounts also contained a $2.08 million provision related to the FCA investigation. They said the final settlement had been communicated and paid after the reporting date.
The FCA imposed a £1,662,700 penalty on Mako in February 2025 after finding deficiencies in its systems and controls against financial crime and in the application of its own policies and procedures. The firm settled the case and received a 30% discount under the regulator’s settlement process.
The case involved purported over-the-counter equity trades executed between December 2013 and November 2015 for clients introduced by the Solo Group.
According to the FCA, those trades included roughly £68.6 billion of Danish equities and £23.6 billion of Belgian equities. Mako earned about £1.45 million in commissions from the activity.
The regulator described the trading as circular and highly suggestive of financial crime. It also identified other red flags, including transactions without an obvious economic rationale and a payment from a United Arab Emirates-based third party that was accepted without adequate due diligence.
Mako’s penalty was the eighth and final FCA enforcement case connected with its wider investigation into cum-ex trading. The regulator said its cases in the area resulted in more than £30 million of fines.
The corporate filings do not say that the enforcement action caused Mako to terminate its cash-equities operation.
A voluntary strike-off is also different from liquidation or another formal insolvency procedure. Companies House guidance says an LLP generally cannot apply if it has traded or otherwise carried on business during the previous three months, except for activities needed to settle its affairs or comply with legal obligations.
If there is no valid objection, the registrar can strike the partnership from the register no earlier than two months after publication of the notice, with dissolution taking effect through a further Gazette notice.
The Bigger Story Is Mako’s Retreat From a Legacy Business
The obvious reading of the timeline is tempting: Mako received a £1.66 million FCA fine and is now closing the entity that received it.
The documents support the timeline. They do not prove the causation.
That distinction matters because almost everything else in the filings looks more like an orderly removal of a legacy business than a collapse of the wider Mako group.
Mako Financial Markets was once a broader client-facing operation. It offered execution and advisory services across equities, fixed income and derivatives before its interdealer brokerage operation was closed in 2020. By the end of its life, the LLP’s principal activity had narrowed to proprietary cash-equities trading.
That is quite different from what Mako presents as its core business today.
The group now describes itself primarily as a technology-driven derivatives liquidity provider and options market maker. Its current UK regulatory presence sits inside Mako Global Derivatives Partnership LLP.
Seen from that perspective, closing Mako Financial Markets removes a corporate entity attached to a business line that no longer appears central to the group.
The transfer of Irish employees is particularly revealing. Staff were not simply being released as the branch disappeared; they were expected to move into another Mako entity. That suggests operational activity and expertise were being consolidated elsewhere in the group.
The balance sheet tells a similar story. A partnership with about $6 million in net assets that chooses voluntary strike-off is in a very different situation from a firm entering compulsory liquidation because it cannot pay creditors. UK rules explicitly state that strike-off is not a substitute for formal insolvency proceedings.
Still, the FCA case cannot be treated as irrelevant.
The settlement imposed a real financial cost, and more importantly attached a major financial-crime enforcement finding to the same legal entity. Once the underlying cash-equities activity was no longer strategically important, there would be little obvious benefit in preserving a separate regulated partnership carrying that history indefinitely.
That does not mean the fine forced the closure. It means the regulatory history and the business case for maintaining the LLP were moving in the same direction.
There is also a broader lesson in how trading groups reorganize. A brand can remain active even when one regulated entity beneath it disappears. Customers, counterparties and readers often see the group name; regulators and corporate registries deal with individual legal entities.
In Mako’s case, that distinction is essential.
The August application does not represent the disappearance of Mako from UK markets. It represents the proposed disappearance of one partnership whose business had already been wound down, while the group’s derivatives-focused operations continue through another FCA-regulated entity.
Unless an objection interrupts the process, the strike-off should therefore be viewed as the final administrative stage of a restructuring that had already taken place operationally.