Ailing LCG sheds yet more quality personnel as Naomi Ewart-Simcock joins AFX Capital

Another exodus of high quality FX industry professionals from LCG has prevailed, following the axing of 20 staff in the summer of this year.

This time, Naomi Ewart-Simcock, an expert in the Chinese market, has left LCG to join rapidly evolving British spread betting firm AFX Group.

Joining AFX Group today as Regional Manager, responsible for the Greater China region, an area of absolute speciality for Ms Ewart-Simcock, this represents a move away from LCG after one and a half years at the firm.

In her new capacity, Ms. Ewart-Simcock will be responsible for planning overseas marketing initiatives and developing the company’s business in China via conferences, meetings and industry events.

Ms. Ewart-Simcock is an astute and highly knowledgeable industry professional, her understanding of the FX business in China being second to none, and her composure when negotiating large scale deals with very established Chinese portfolio management companies, all conducted in fluent Chinese, is an asset to AFX Group and a testimony to Ms. Ewart-Simcock’s composed methodology in one of the most lucrative yet detail-orientated regions of the world.

Before joining LCG, Ms. Ewart-Simcock spent four and a half years at Alpari UK Ltd as Senior Account Manager, preceded by a year at ACM in Geneva before its acqusition by Swissquote between 2009 and 2010.

LCG has been unable to retain top talent since the commencement of its turbulent reorganization effort.

FinanceFeeds reported in the summer that Kate Valdar, the company’s Legal Counsel left the company officially at the end of May this year and had commenced a stint of gardening leave, and Nicola Penn, the Executive Assistant who was brought in by the new management post-acquisition, had 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.

At the same time, Nicola Penn 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.

In June this year, LCG canned its white elephant project which was its 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.