Michael Spencer

Michael Alan Spencer, Baron Spencer of Alresford (born 30 May 1955), sometimes known as "Spens", is a British billionaire businessman and philanthropist.

In 1976, he joined city broker Simon and Coates.

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.

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.

Intercapital was the first to launch a real-time screen that displayed live prices.

In 1997, Spencer purchased a controlling interest in spread betting firm City Index Group, acquiring his stake from the firm's founders.

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 few companies to do so with a founder CEO.

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 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.

NEX Group was formerly known as ICAP, until the sale of its voice-broking business to Tullett Prebon in December 2016.

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.

In January 2016 the three ICAP employees were unanimously acquitted in the UK; the US Department of Justice dropped charges against the trio in July 2016.

Spencer was not implicated but issued a public apology on behalf of 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.

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.

Spencer was described in 2018 as the richest self-made person in the City of London and a "City grandee".

According to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2021, he is worth an estimated £1.2 billion.

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 holds stakes in numerous public and private companies.

He was awarded a peerage in August 2020 in the Political Honours List.

Spencer was born in British Malaya.

His father was an economist and international civil servant, his mother a linguist.

During Spencer's early childhood, his family moved from his birth country to Sudan and then Ethiopia.

Aged eight, he was sent to England to board, latterly at Worth School in Sussex.

He read physics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, after which he considered becoming an astrophysicist.

Spencer is an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and an Honorary Doctor of Loughborough University.