Spencer’s journey to the centre of the derivatives world

Icap’s chief executive is positioning his company to take advantage of regulatory changes to the over-the-counter market

Michael Spencer, the chief executive of Icap, is building a new house in Kenya that will lie just seven minutes – latitude not travelling time – from the equator. One minute is one 60th of a degree, so that’s pretty close. It is an appropriate location for a man who, since setting up Intercapital in 1986 – and through the successive mergers with Exco and Garban in the 1990s, has built a business now worth nearly £3bn and an estimated personal fortune of more than £500m by being at the centre of things.

Icap is now one of a handful of brokers that ferociously compete to sit between the largest investment banks and handle the trading of over-the-counter derivatives, a market worth $583 trillion as of June last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

WSJ Logo
How Trump Got His ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Across the Finish LineExternal link

How Trump Got His ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Across the Finish Line