Betting firm founder to see stake reduced
Mr Foley will see his stake diluted from 26.4% to 18.1% at the float, though he will not net any windfall from the reduction.
WorldSpreads is raising €8.5 million in new funding from the flotation, first revealed by the Irish Examiner last week. The company will have a market cap of €27m.
The company said it will use the equity raised to expand into new market and to meet the capital adequacy requirements of Britain’s Financial Services Authority, which regulates the firm’s activities there. It will also use the funding to pay off its debts.
The company said in the year ended March 31, 2007, it generated revenues of €6.5m and an operating profit of around €530,000. The loss is an improvement on the €731,956 it recorded in the previous year.
WorldSpreads said its number of active clients has increased from 700 in the first quarter of its 2007 financial year to 1,400 per month by the end of March 2007. The average number of bets placed with the company has increased over the same period from 13,000 to 55,000 per month.
WorldSpreads was set up by Mr Foley, a former currency trader, in 2000 to focus on spread betting in sports events.
In 2003 it began offering customers financial spread betting, which allowed them to speculate on currencies and indices.
