'Brokerage revolutionary' eschews his old gambling days
Michael Spencer doesn't like talking about his old gambling days.
There's the story about him making more money wagering on backgammon than he did at his day job as a broker in the late 1970s, when he says he used to play with London Playboy Club boss Victor Lownes. And then there's the one about him winning a few hundred thousand pounds betting with his office mates on the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
Spencer, 51, would rather talk about the gamble he took when he founded ICAP Plc with a 50,000-pound investment 20 years ago. Since then, the ICAP chief executive officer has built the company into the world's No 1 interdealer broker.
At the time he started London-based ICAP, then called Intercapital, Spencer says, he gave himself 50-50 odds of making it. "We only had a short-term hope that we would survive," he says.
His bet has paid off handsomely, making Spencer, who has homes in the British capital and the south of France, one of the richest men in the City of London.
Brokerage revolution
Spencer is leading a revolution in the brokerage world.
Though the system of brokers shouting bids and offers into telephones still dominates, trades are increasingly going electronic. More than 50 percent of ICAP's transactions are done silently via computer, and that percentage is increasing fast.
ICAP's pre-tax earnings rose 9 percent to 104 million pounds on revenue of 542.8 million pounds in the six months ended on September 30, 2006.
ICAP's success has enabled Spencer to live the high life.His name hit the tabloid headlines in 2005 when he paid British chart-topping singer Robbie Williams 1 million pounds to sing at the 50th-birthday bash Spencer threw for himself and 300 friends at Chateauneuf de Grasse near Cannes.
The ICAP chief executive has a personal wine cellar containing more than 1,700 cases.
Dining with Picasso
Spencer travels to work every day from his home in Holland Park, west London, in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes with a license plate that reads "1CAP."
A Picasso hangs in ICAP's dining room, while a painting of a woman in a red dress by the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano graces Spencer's office.
Spencer earned 5.7 million pounds in 2006, making him one of the highest-paid FTSE 100 executives.
Bloomberg News
(China Daily 01/30/2007 page16)
