The LCG exodus continues: Legal Counsel leaves, as does ICAP veteran Peter Wells, and Executive Assitant to directors

The revolving door culture within British spread betting firm LCG (formerly London Capital Group) is continuing, this time with a series of senior executives in departments other than operations, sales and marketing having left the firm.

It has been confirmed to FinanceFeeds this morning that Kate Valdar, the company’s Legal Counsel left the company officially at the end of May this year and is now on gardening leave, and Nicola Penn, the Executive Assistant who was brought in by the new management post-acquisition, has also left the company.

Ms. Valdar joined LCG in January 2015 from IG Group, where she was Senior Legal Counsel between 2010 and 2014, having spent the previous 9 years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers at management level.

Educated at the exclusive Haberdashers Aske’s School for Girls in North London, Ms. Valdar studied History at the University of Birmingham before gaining her PgDL (Diploma in Law) from the College of Law in London.

Nicola Penn has also left LCG after just one year as Executive Assistant to the board of directors.

Ms. Penn joined LCG in May last year having held Executive Assistant positions at fashion and perfume manufacturer Estee Lauder and beauty company COTY. When contacted by FinanceFeeds as to her reasons for departure, no comment was provided.

Peter Wells, who spent 28 years at British interdealer broker ICAP has also moved on, and is currently taking a break from life in The City.

Mr. Wells was one of the new recruits when the company was acquired by GLIO led by Charles-Henri Sabet, along with former IG Group COO for the last 15 years, Arman Tahmassebi, and Francois Nembrini, previously Managing Director of FXCMPro, FXCM’s institutional division for 12 years both whom left LCG after a very short time.

Mr. Tahmassebi is now COO at ETX Capital in London, and Mr. Nembrini leads Quantic AM, which is the new institutional division of AFX Group.

Mr. Wells spent just one year at LCG, a very short time compared to his 28 year tenure at ICAP.

In March this year, Ollie Rosewell also left LCG. Mr. Rosewell was Head of Brand Marketing at LCG between January 2015 and March 2016, before he left the company to become Head of Marketing at AFX Group.

Mr. Rosewell joined LCG almost immediately post-acquisition from IG Group where he spent 8 years as Senior Marketing Manager, after a 3 year stint at M&G in London.

Last month, LCG canned its newly established LCG Digital division after just 6 months.

Based in Tel Aviv, and run by Amedeo Muscato who has a substantial background within some of Israel’s widely recognized digital media and affiliate market firms including senior executive positions at OptionTime and AffOption, The Nation Traffic, Playtech and TraffiNet, the division was established to run digital marketing initiatives.

This was all canned and when contacted by FinanceFeeds, Mr. Moscato did not proffer a comment. He has now moved on to pursue his own business, Soho Media, which provides boutique traffic to firm across web, video and mobile advertising.

Setting up an entirely new entity, in a different country to the main operations of a loss-making company whilst its balance sheet has been in the red since 2011 and then canning it just six months later could be construed as a very unusual step to take.

In the beginning of 2015, LCG’s losses ran at approximately £7 million for the first quarter, by the end of the year, the hole in the bucket had increased so much that the firm had made a £13.9 million loss for 2015.

In spite of such losses, LCG moved its operations from Devonshire Square in the heart of the City of London’s financial district to the highly exclusive 1 Knightsbridge in London’s West End, and underwent a rebrand, part of which involved the purchase of the LCG.com domain for $175,000.

Very few of the original senior executive team that were elected to their positions in 2014 post-acquisition are still with the company.