Mars FX US LP never told its investors which brokers held their money. A disclosure statement filed on August 4 names two of them: Equiti Capital UK Limited in London and GO Markets Pty Ltd in Melbourne.
The fund’s offering documents said those identities were commercially sensitive. Neither Equiti nor GO Markets is accused of wrongdoing.
The estate wants records from both to trace a claimed $566.7 million. GO Markets is authorized by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and the London firm by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The Brokers Investors Never Saw
Novus Capital Partners, the sponsor, told clients their capital would reach a master fund and then a technology partner regulated in the British Virgin Islands, which would route trades through regulated brokers.
The offering documents said the names were “proprietary and sensitive,” Bloomberg reported. A 2024 revision conceded that the technology partner, Tech RealFX Ltd, was neither a licensed broker nor a regulated custodian.
The filing says balances the estate may be entitled to sit at accounts in the names of Tech RealFX and two associated companies, Labuan-registered 4XHUB Limited and Treal Capital Limited. Both brokers “are expected to hold broker-side records.”
A Fund That Never Had a Losing Month
Mars FX reported gains averaging 19% a year and no losing month in four years, according to Bloomberg. Tech RealFX says its platform stopped operating in October 2022, while those returns kept being reported.
David Choi, who ran the fund, is a Wharton graduate who worked at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and TPG Capital before starting Novus.
Co-founder Ashish “Hash” Patel worked at Merrill Lynch in Australia and helped found the coal company Indus Coal. In 2017 he co-developed the Mars FX trading system.
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In December 2024, Novus told investors it had misjudged the fund’s liquidity. A month later it said it would wind the funds down, citing complications from a Hong Kong money laundering investigation.
More than 500 investors were listed as creditors when Mars FX filed for Chapter 11 in New York on March 23.
The London Entity
Equiti Capital UK Limited has been FCA authorized since April 2011 under firm reference number 528328, holds permission to control client money, and carries no disciplinary history on the register.
It took its present name in 2018, when Equiti Group rebranded the prime broker Divisa Capital, and sells liquidity to institutional counterparties rather than running a retail book.
What the Estate Has Not Established
Mars FX and its Cayman affiliates put about $277.4 million into the Tech RealFX structure between August 2020 and August 2024. A withdrawal request in November 2024, including purported profits, valued the position at about $566.7 million.
It was not paid. Who beneficially owned the accounts is still open.
Identically named companies exist in more than one place: Tech RealFX and Treal in both the British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong, 4XHUB in both Labuan and Hong Kong.
Tech RealFX contests the claim. In an application to set aside a statutory demand, later discontinued in March 2025, it argued that third-party broker statements relied on by the fund were forged.
Its defense, filed in November 2025, denies that it received or held client monies.
The Melbourne Entity
GO Markets Pty Ltd has held Australian Financial Services License 254963 since July 2007 and operates from Collins Street in Melbourne under ABN 85 081 864 039.
Control of the broker passed to AIP Global Holdings in 2012 through an agreement with My First Investments, which took majority board seats.
It later set up a Dubai subsidiary and joined the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange in 2019. Separate GO Markets entities in the United Kingdom no longer hold FCA authorization, and the filing names the Australian company.
Equiti Capital UK, for its part, paused onboarding of new medium and high-risk clients and cut back its liquidity-provision role for other Equiti entities in August, alongside a 24% year-over-year revenue decline to $24.4 million for 2025.
The link has been public in pieces for over a year. OffshoreAlert named both brokers when it reported the British Virgin Islands claim in June 2025, and The Australian reported the GO Markets connection this month.
The British Virgin Islands proceedings remain ongoing. The disclosure statement itself is not yet approved: in the version on file, the lines for the ballot deadline and the confirmation hearing date are still blank.
This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.
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