Two senior execs leave Betfair
The CEO of Betfair's financial exchange LMAX resigns after just five months, while its chief products and services head will depart at the end of April.
Betfair is to lose two senior executives in the coming weeks including the first CEO of its financial betting exchange start-up LMAX, who has resigned just five months after the platform was launched to retail investors.
Robin Osmond, former head of global investment banking at Morgan Stanley, will leave the business to “pursue other opportunities in the City”, according to an LMAX statement.
Osmond will be replaced by David Mercer with immediate effect, who will become interim chief executive of the platform that is 73.5% owned by Betfair. Mercer previously worked at forex and derivatives provider Velocity Trade. Goldman Sachs holds a 12.5% stake in LMAX’s parent company, London Multi-Asset Exchange (Holdings). The now Gibraltar licensed business invested £25m in the start-up and, despite declining to give details of LMAX’s trading numbers, suggested it was “fully committed” to the venture.
LMAX, Betfair’s financial trading spin-off, offers retail investors the ability to trade Contracts for Difference (CFDs) in market indices, fixed income instruments, commodities and FX. CFDs appeal to retail investors, as they enable them to profit from share price moves without having to pay the stamp duty associated with owning the shares.
Mathias Entenmann
Meanwhile, eGaming Review has learned Mathias Entenmann, Betfair’s chief products and services officer and former UK managing director of exchange, who joined the exchange in January 2007 to oversee products as well as the company’s global operations group including its launch in the US, is also leaving at the end of this month after “taking the decision to relocate back to Germany with his family”, according to a Betfair spokesman.
Entenmann was previously the vice president, international for PayPal, and prior to that he was the founder and CEO of mobile payments start-up Paybox.
On Entenmann’s online profile Nick Garner, former search manager at Betfair said the German had “given the organisation a more efficient structure and allowed the spirit of creativity to continue despite the rapid growth of the company”.
No replacement has yet been appointed.