CMC Markets, the financial trading business majority owned by one of the City’s richest men, is cutting just over 10 per cent of its workforce.

CMC, founded by its executive chairman Peter Cruddas, whose family still controls approximately 85 per cent of the business, informed about 130 of the 1,200 workforce in London just over a week ago that they would lose their jobs.

The cuts are part of a restructuring of London-headquartered CMC, which said it was “reviewing its resources as part of its normal business process”. The review could lead to further redundancies, though it did say it might employ more people in new offices in Europe. CMC is best known in the UK for its spread-betting business but is focused globally on contracts-for-difference (CFD) derivatives.

Goldman Sachs bought 10 per cent of CMC in November for about £140m, in a deal that is thought to have pushed Cruddas’s personal fortune to over £1bn. At the time, CMC said it hoped the investment would help fund its growth by opening up new markets.

CMC Markets, the financial trading business majority owned by the City of London’s richest man, has emerged as one of the main beneficiaries from the recent volatility in global markets.

CMC, founded by its executive chairman Peter Cruddas, whose family still controls approximately 85pc of it, saw profit before tax increase almost three times to £57.2m in the year to March, up from £21m the previous year.

The profit uplift came on the back of a 64pc rise in revenue to £181.5m for CMC, which is best known in the UK for its spread-betting business but is largely focused globally on contracts-for-difference (CFD) derivatives.

Chief executive Jim Pettigrew acknowledged the role of volatility in producing record profits but said it was difficult in such businesses to extrapolate whether it was volatility or business growth that is responsible.

He cautioned that volatility in the current year may be ‘slightly off’, but said that ‘over a five-year period it remains at decent levels’.

CMC has been expanding its global presence at a rapid rate in recent years, opening six offices in the past financial year, with Mr Pettigrew pinpointing Europe, in particular Spain and Italy, as a focus for the current year.

CityAM says spread betting company CMC Markets is set to launch an eight-part education package called Trading IQ that will give “newcomers to the game a step-by-step guide to spread betting”. The accompanying DVD will be introduced by TV start James Nesbitt in an effort to attract a wider audience to the product. According to CMC’s website, the company will be starting its roadshow tomorrow in Leeds with its ‘Learn to Trade Financial Markets Workshop’.

Peter Cruddas, the City of London’s richest man, has appointed two new directors to the board of CMC Markets, the financial spread-betting business in which he controls a majority stake.

Mr Cruddas, who in December sold a 10pc stake to Goldman Sachs for about £140m, has made the non-executive appointments in a bid to bolster CMC’s board.

But Mr Cruddas – who has a personal fortune in excess of £1bn – is ruling out a stock market float for now, instead preferring to grow the business with the help of the money invested by Goldman.

CMC’s new directors are Goldman’s Jan Boomaars and Simon Waugh, the founder of Propertyworld.com.

London-based Mr Boomaars was elevated into Goldman’s exclusive partnership in October 2006 and works as a managing director in equity derivatives.

Mr Waugh replaces Jim Pettigrew, the former finance director of inter-dealer ICAP, who became CMC’s chief executive last year.

However, Mr Cruddas, who remains CMC’s executive chairman, says the appointments are not intended as a pre-cursor to a stock market listing.

CMC had planned to float last May with a price tag of about £700m, but the listing was pulled at the 11th-hour because of market volatility.

He said: “We do not have any plans to float”, adding that his focus is to grow the business, which he says is expanding in excess of 40pc a year.

The business now has offices in Singapore and Auckland and Edinburgh, and will open its first in Ireland in Dublin later this month. That will take the total number of offices to 23, with another six planned over the next 18 months.

In the year to end March 2007, CMC doubled pre-tax profits from £10m to £21m, made an operating profit of £19.9m on sales 45.9pc higher at £110.5m in the year to March 2007. However, group profits for the current year – to March 2008 – are expected to be higher, in the region of £70-75m.

Two months in, Mr Cruddas said the relationship with Goldman was “working really well”. “It’s great to have them on board as they are helping us with all sorts of issues.”

Part of the rationale for the Goldman investment was to transform CMC into a global business with considerable scale.

In January, CMC acquired Australian broking firm Andrew West, which followed on from its purchase of online financial information site DigitalLook last year.Given the speed of CMC’s growth, Mr Cruddas added: “We need to continually strengthen our board and management.”

Financial spread betting specialists CMC Markets are opening their first office in Scotland this month as they continue to expand.

The office will initially employ about six and the company will be targeting 25,000 active investors.

CMC said they believed customers would find investing with contracts for difference and spread bets a more flexible and cost-efficient way of trading financial markets.

Spokesman Patrick Latchford said the decision to open an office in Edinburgh had ‘not been taken lightly’.

CMC Markets, the London-based spreadbetting firm, will not be floated next year and will focus instead on building value after Thursday’s deal with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS).

CMC plans to work with Goldman Sachs to provide services for the investment bank and its clients, executive chairman and founder of the company Peter Cruddas said in an interview.

“Flotation is a natural progression for us, but there is no logic in doing that in 2008. I want to get the Goldman Sachs opportunities off the ground next year to grow the value of CMC’s business organically,” Cruddas said.

Goldman has agreed to purchase a 10% stake in CMC, the company said earlier Thursday. The deal leaves Cruddas holding around 85% of the remaining shares, with the other 5% held by staff of CMC.

Cruddas tried to float CMC in May 2006, but pulled the deal an hour before the listing amid volatility that had seen the market fall by 10% since the start of roadshows.

He said he was happy the float didn’t happen as he is “delighted” with the Goldman Sachs transaction. Cruddas declined to comment on the value of the deal, but the Financial Times said it could be worth up to GBP140 million.

Cruddas said Goldman approached him about buying some of his shares in CMC six months ago. He rejected the offer at first, but then changed his mind because it would bring business to CMC. “I’m not interested in selling more than 10%. I won’t be selling any shares next year,” he said.

Cruddas added that he may work with Goldman Sachs on the acquisition front. He does not have a specific target in mind, but says that CMC is looking to buy outside the U.K.

CMC was established as a foreign exchange market maker in 1989. It launched an online foreign exchange platform in 1996 and branched out into contracts for difference in 2000.

The company handled over 16.2 million trades between November 2006 and October 2007. The trades that were executed in that period were worth $1.1 trillion.

It plans to open a further six to eight offices in the next 18 months and Cruddas said he is confident that the business will grow organically by 40% next year.

British spread-betting firm CMC Markets said yesterday investment bank Goldman Sachs had agreed to take a 10 per cent stake in the firm.

CMC said it hopes the investment will help fund its growth and that its technology could be used by Goldman Sachs.

It also hopes Goldman’s backing could help open new markets.

“Goldman Sachs, we feel, can open doors to major banks, major brokers,” said CMC executive chair Peter Cruddas. “They have fantastic corporate clients and we have fantastic technology.”

CMC did not disclose a value for the deal, but a source familiar with the matter said it was worth up to $284 million (Canadian).

Jan Boomaars, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, said the firm hopes to capture “the significant opportunities in the global retail derivatives market.”

Financial spread betting allows speculation on securities movements.