Cunningham exits CPS

Stockbroker and investment banker Tony Cunningham is leaving CPS Capital Group, the firm he started more than 21 years ago, to join another boutique firm, Barclay Wells.

Known as one of Perth’s top deal makers and the original driving force behind share tipping website Hotcopper, Mr Cunningham said efforts to wind down his activity at CPS had failed, so he had decided it was best to exit the firm.

“I sold out a few years ago,” he said.

“I gave up all my roles there with a view to relaxing and easing my way into retirement.

“That has not really happened.”

Mr Cunningham said his plan was still to slow down and Barclay was a better fit for that strategy.

A tennis scholar who went to the US to pursue the sport, he returned to Perth having studied computer science at the University of Nebraska.

It was with that background that he discovered Hotcopper when he returned to Australia in the mid 1990s. It was then an obscure bulletin board operating to a select audience before the internet had taken off. He eventually acquired the business and listed it as Hotcopper Australia as the internet started to take off.

Hotcopper was bought by St George Bank in 2000 at the height of the dot.com technology boom. Four years later it was in the hands of a Macquarie Bank fund and Mr Cunningham was offered it back. He purchased it in partnership with Gavin Argyle.

He remained involved until 2016 when Hotcopper Holdings was listed. It became The Market Herald a few years later.

Mr Cunningham's interest in software has continued throughout his broking and investment banking career.

He was a founding director of Complii, established in 2010 as a software system to assist broking compliance. The business behind that successful software merged in 2020 with listed firm Intiger Group and now trades on the ASX as Complii FinTech Solutions.

Mr Cunningham remains linked to tennis and has sat on the board of Tennis West since 2019.