Michael Spencer

In March 2018, NEX announced an approach by CME Group further to a proposed acquisition. CME Group offered £3.8bn in a cash-and-share deal, valuing Spencer's stake at approximately £668m. By the time the deal was completed in November 2018, Spencer's stake had grown to over £700m, half of which he received in cash, raising his net worth to over £1bn. As a listed company, NEX's total shareholder return was close to 6,000 per cent. Spencer serves as a CME Group Board Member and Special Advisor.

Spencer has held stakes in numerous public and private companies. He is a director and majority shareholder in IPGL, a private holding company making investments on behalf of Spencer and other family trusts. He is also an early-stage investor in Temple Grange Partners, a consultancy that finds compliance specialists for financial markets, and an investor in mobile gaming software company Probability. He is a co-owner of Exotix, a frontier markets investment banking boutique. He also owns a stake in Cluff Natural Resources, an energy resources investor. In 2018 he led an investment round in two cyber security firms: Veridium, a biometric authentication startup, and Glasswall Solutions, a file regeneration technology firm.

Spencer is also an investor in Elvie, a female health tech startup In 2018, he became Chairman and majority shareholder of investment firm FCFM. He is an investor in Viewforth Investment Partners, a London-based hedge fund focusing on mid-cap European securities. In December 2018, the Financial Times reported that Spencer was considering taking a $50m controlling stake in insurance start-up Singapore Life.

Spencer has homes in Chelsea, London, and Kenya. Who's Who lists his hobbies as running, riding, shooting, wine and art; he is also reported to be an aviation enthusiast. Spencer runs a horse-breeding programme and plans to build a stable in Laikipia. His horse Freewheeler, a South African-bred colt, won the 2018 Kenya Derby at Ngong.

Spencer is a noted donor to the Conservative Party, taking dinner with then-Prime Minister David Cameron. ICAP and Spencer have made £4.6m in donations to the party, although Spencer was critical of the May government's business policies; he has not donated to the party since the 2017 UK general election. Spencer was nominated for a peerage in Cameron's resignation honours list, for charity fundraising and service to the Conservative Party while Treasurer, but reportedly his nomination was blocked by the Cabinet Office.

Following the sale of its voice broking business to banking firm Tullett Prebon in December 2016, ICAP was renamed NEX Group, while Tullett Prebon became TP ICAP. Spencer sold the majority of his stake in TP ICAP in January 2017. He remains CEO and largest shareholder of Nex Group, as of February 2017.

In June 2016 Spencer married Sarah, Marchioness of Milford Haven in London.

Spencer is a member of White's, as well as clubs at 5 Hertford Street and 67 Pall Mall. He once left a £5,000 tip for restaurant staff at Scotts, after winning a bet with Richard Caring about the outcome of the 2015 UK General Election.

In September 2013, ICAP was implicated in the global Libor interest rate scandal and fined $87m (£54m) by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Britain's Financial Conduct Authority. In March 2014, British prosecutors filed charges against three former ICAP employees for their role in the affair. They were among a global group of finance professionals to be investigated, including staff from Barclays, UBS, Citigroup and RP Martin. In January 2016 the three ICAP employees were unanimously acquitted in the UK; the US Department of Justice dropped charges against them in July 2016. Spencer was not implicated but issued a public apology on behalf of ICAP.

In 2011, Spencer was made Chairman of Bordeaux Index, the online wine trading exchange in which he is an investor. He also holds a stake in English wine maker Chapel Down.

In February 2010, Spencer made £45m from the sale of ICAP shares weeks before the company issued a profit warning that resulted in a 16% fall in the firm's share price.

In 2008, Spencer divorced his first wife Lorraine. They had two sons and a daughter, and homes in Notting Hill, Suffolk and Manhattan.

Spencer served as Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 2006 to 2010, during which time the party's finances moved from a deficit of £8m into a surplus of £75m. He is the Chairman of the Conservative Party Foundation, a charity established to strengthen the financial future of the Conservative Party.

Intercapital was the first to launch a real-time screen that displayed live prices. In 1998, it was acquired by Exco in a reverse takeover, and the enlarged business was renamed Intercapital. In 1999, the company merged with Garban to create Garban-Intercapital, the largest inter-dealer broker in the world with more than 5,000 employees across 63 offices. Garban renamed itself ICAP in 2001 (its full name did not fit on trading screens, hence the abbreviation to ICAP). Functioning as an inter-dealer broker, ICAP brought together large financial institutions in search of buyers and sellers for corporate and government bonds, foreign currency, commodities and other financial products. The firm collected commissions and connected clients via its electronic trading platforms. In 2006 ICAP entered the FTSE 100, one of a small number of companies to do so with a founder CEO.

In 1997, Spencer purchased a controlling interest in spread betting firm City Index Group, acquiring his stake from the firm's founders. City Index was later sold for $118m to financial services company GAIN Capital, netting Spencer more than $80m.

In 1993, Spencer founded the ICAP Charity Day, an annual event in which royalty and celebrities man the trading desks at ICAP and the broking firm donates the day's revenue to charities. As of February 2017, the event has raised over £140 million and backed 2,200 charitable projects. He has said that the Charity Day is his proudest achievement in business, alongside breaking into the FTSE100 with ICAP.

Spencer co-founded Intercapital Brokers in 1986. Over its 20 years as a listed company, its total shareholder return was close to 6,000 per cent.

In 1976, he joined city broker Simon and Coates. There he took a large short position on the price of gold prior to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan; the price of gold quadrupled in response to the invasion and Spencer's position incurred heavy losses, leading to his dismissal. In 1981, he joined Drexel Burnham, rising to Vice President before being fired for trading errors. From 1983 to 1986 he was a Director at futures firm Charles Fulton; when that firm floated, Spencer used £50,000 from his proceeds to co-found his first business, along with three colleagues.

Michael Alan Spencer (born 30 May 1955) is a British businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of NEX Group, a UK-based business focused on electronic markets and post trade business which was acquired by CME Group in November 2018. NEX Group was formerly known as ICAP, until the sale of its voice-broking business to Tullett Prebon in December 2016. Spencer has been described as the richest self-made person in the City of London and as a "City grandee".