LCG chairman resigns "as planned"
Spread betting company announces Richard Davey resigns with immediate effect and has already been replaced "as planned" but without giving any further detail.
The chairman of spread betting company London Capital Group has resigned with immediate effect and has already been replaced “as planned”, the company announced to the stock market this morning.
LCG said sixty-four year Richard Davey was to leave the company after five years at the helm but failed to give any reasons for his sudden departure. Giles Vardey, who was appointed as a non executive director of the company in May will succeed Davey as non executive chairman of the board from 10 August 2012 “as planned”, it said in a short statement without giving any further details.
“The board would like to take this opportunity to thank Richard for all his hard work and efforts over the past five years and to welcome Giles into his new role.”
Former head of investment banking at NM Rothschild & Sons Davey ran Rothschild’s Financial Services Group working with a number of high street banks and insurers and is currently a senior independent non-executive director at Severn Trent water and non executive director at Amlin plc. He has previously non-executive roles at Yorkshire Building Society, where he was vice chairman, Freeserve Plc and Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society.
Vardey joined the company on May 30 with Davey at the time welcoming him on board and saying that his “extensive experience and expertise, across many facets of the financial services industry will be a valuable addition as we pursue our growth strategy in the UK and overseas”.
Vardey is a non-executive director at Aritas (formerly Pipeline) Financial and until recently, was a non-executive director at Collins Stewart Hawkpoint. His previous roles include chairman of Plus Markets Group, chairman of Hunter Fleming, chairman of CQS Management and chief Executive of Greig Middleton & Co. He was also a main board director of the London Stock Exchange.
Earlier this year LCG reported a 13% increase in revenues in its full year figures for 2011 following record trade volumes in the six months ending 31 December.
This followed a difficult first half of 2011, with the LCG delaying the announcement of its full-year figures for 2010 following a ruling from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) which opened the possibility of the company being forced to pay a £7.7m fine for a failed fund. Legal fees related to the case and the cost of moving the company office hit the adjusted profit before tax, which would have been up 23% to £8m for the year.
In its latest trading statement on July 10 the group said it was expecting to report that adjusted profit before tax for the six months to 30 June 2012 will be in the region of £2m compared to £3m for the same period last year with the drop based on a share based payment expense and a provision for £1.9m relating to FOS claims.
Although market volatility and volumes remained low in the first half of the year, it said the retail spread betting and CFD business “continues to trade well” and revenues were 10% higher than the same period last year. Customer acquisitions grew by 4.2%, while it also said it was “pleased to announce” that it has added a number of “significant” new white label partners which are due to commence trading in the second half of its financial year.