Dublin-based financial spreadbetting firm WorldSpreads Group has announced that it has entered into a conditional agreement to sell its Irish division, WorldSpreads (Ireland) Limited, for €9.9 million.

The firm revealed in a statement to the Dublin stock exchange that the sale involved a new Irish private limited company owned by a consortium of parties including WorldSpreads’ co-founder and current Chief Operations Officer Brian O’Neill.

The Dublin-listed company stated that Fergus Rice, a former senior executive for its Irish business, was also involved alongside other private and institutional investors. It revealed that the deal is conditional on the endorsement of the company’s shareholders, who will hold an extraordinary general meeting on September 4 in Dublin, as well as on the approval of the Financial Regulator.

It announced that an initial sum of €6.68 million would be paid followed by additional amounts of €1.57 million and €1.65 million on the first and second anniversaries of the deal’s completion.

WorldSpreads stated that it decided to sell its Irish operations as ‘the maintenance of two fully fledged and separately regulated trading desks in the same time zone and the attendant duplication of cost and functions had become onerous and inefficient’.

It revealed that it was also concerned about its ability to maintain a strong income stream should the underlying Irish economy suffer a ‘further weakening’ as a result of the global downturn.

WorldSpreads said that the sale would ‘considerably strengthen’ its balance sheet and financial position while providing it with additional resources to ‘expand and drive growth in higher margin international markets’.


Source: iGamingBusiness.com