Spread Betting UK

Founded in 2000 by Conor and Michael Foley and Brian O’Neil, WorldSpreads is Ireland’s largest spread trading company. It trades under two distinct brand names, ‘WorldSpreads’ for financial spread trading and ‘SportsSpread’ for sports spread betting.

Capital Spreads is a division of London Capital (LCG). LCG was originally established in the mid 1990s as a proprietary trading business, under different management. In September 2002, it commenced trading as an institutional broker (now known as Capital Derivatives) concentrating on the inter-bank futures market.

Investor Spreads is a collaboration between Twowaymarkets Ltd and www.investor.co.uk. Investor Spreads is committed to providing a trading platform with a diverse array of products to suit all clients whilst offering some of the tightest spreads within the industry. Investor Spreads provides a number of resources to assist both experienced and inexperienced clients. The introduction of the dynamic educational and training resource is designed to provide a quick and easy way for clients to familiarise themselves with the key issues in spread betting.

The business was founded in 1999 by former City dealer Jonathan Hufford and is privately owned by a consortium of successful businessmen. Hufford was hooked on the sheer fun offered by spread betting and decided to set up a company that would make spread betting much more user-friendly.

Peter Cruddas was born to a Smithfield meat-market porter and a cleaner and left Shoreditch Comprehensive in the East End of London at sixteen to help support a family that included his cab-driving twin brother. After starting out as a Western Union telex operator and various front and back-office jobs in banks and brokerages, he launched CMC Group in 1989 with £10,000.

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P. is a global financial services firm specializing in bond trading, as well as investment banking, asset management, market data and brokerage services. It was founded in 1945 by Bernard Gerald Cantor and John Fitzgerald as a limited partnership and remains so today.

TradIndex.com was launched in 2002 by Tradition Financial Services (TFS), one of Europe’s largest brokerages. TFS, founded in 1985 firms is part of Compagnie Financière (CFT) which is in the world’s top three brokers in OTC financial (money markets, bond markets, interest rate, currency and credit derivatives, equity derivatives, exchange-traded products) and non-financial products (energy, precious metals, pulp and paper, etc.), and number one in continental Europe. CFT shares have been listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange since 1973.

James Man established a commodities brokerage in 1783, and the company was re-named after his grandsons as E.D. and F. Man in 1869. It floated in London in 1994 and, in 2007, MF Global, its brokerage business, was separated from Man Group plc and floated on the NYSE. MF Global Spreads (formerly called Man Spread Trading) is owned by MF Global, and offers spread betting services to U.K. residents and certain other parts of the world.

In May 2002, Sporting Index decided to concentrate on their core business and sold Financial Spreads to IFX Group PLC. In Mid-2006 IFX Markets (which operates Finspreads) was acquired by City Index in their quest to consolidate their position in the industry and now both City Index and Finspreads are subsidiaries of City Index Holdings Ltd. The two companies are now under the same roof and share the same office floor and systems so although retaining the name…it is all City Index driven.

City Index is owned by IPGL, the private investment vehicle owned by Michael Spencer, the founder and Chief Executive of ICAP plc the world’s biggest money broker. While a student reading physics at Oxford, Spencer made £300m in share dealings. In the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List he was placed 62nd with an estimated fortune of £1150m. City Index was established in 1983 and in 2005 acquired forex broker IFX Markets and spread better provider Finspreads.com. In 2008 it acquired FX Solutions, a specialist in retail and white label foreign exchange services. In 2001 City Index launched Contracts for Difference (CFDs) in the U.K.