Betting firm spreads its wings to Scotland

Scotland on Sunday

Irish spread betting firm WorldSpreads is to launch an office in Scotland this week, despite its bigger rival CMC Markets shutting up shop north of the border in March, a little more than a year after it opened.

WorldSpreads has chosen Edinburgh as its first UK base outside London and has recruited Douglas Wood, who worked with CMC in the city, as a sales trader to run the office.

Wood said Scotland is a relatively untapped market, especially since CMC no longer has a physical presence. He added that while CMC saw potential in Scotland, Goldman Sachs, which has a 10 per cent stake in the business, was no longer in favour of regional offices.

WorldSpreads, which has its headquarters in Dublin, has taken serviced offices in St Andrew Square where it will offer seminars to clients to introduce them to spread betting. Wood said: ‘The average client needs support to get to understand spread betting. We’re not a massive brand like CMC or IG Index. We want to be able to offer a smaller, local market and personalised service.’

Initially the firm will have only two employees in Edinburgh, but this could expand depending on the amount of business generated.

WorldSpreads was set up in 2000 to allow investors to trade individual shares, foreign exchange, stock indices, commodities and interest rates, by phone or online. It expanded into the UK with the opening of its London office in 2005.

WorldSpreads is listed on the AIM market in London and the IEX market in Dublin. It was co-founded by Conor Foley, chief executive, and Brian O’Neill, chief operations officer, who built their careers in financial services in Ireland.

Tags: CMC Markets, Edinburgh, Goldman Sachs, spread betting, worldspreads

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Industry Happenings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.