The LSE Directory / CFD and forex brokers
Spreadex is a privately owned UK broker, founded on 25 February 1999 and headquartered at Churchill House in St Albans, Hertfordshire. It offers financial spread betting, contracts for difference (CFDs) and options across shares, indices, forex, commodities, bonds and interest rates, exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies, delivered through its own web platform, iOS and Android apps, and a TradingView charting integration. Its financial trading business is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under FRN 190941 (authorised since December 2001). What sets Spreadex apart from single-product CFD and spread betting brokers is that it runs a full sports betting book alongside its financial products under one company: customers can place fixed-odds and spread bets on football, horse racing, Formula 1 and other sports, licensed separately by the Gambling Commission under licence 8835. Its options offering is narrow and high-touch rather than broad and electronic; only two markets, UK 100 and Germany 40, are quoted online, with other underlyings dealt bespoke over the phone by the firm's own dealing desk. This combination positions Spreadex as a boutique, UK-focused operator rather than an international multi-market brand, serving a self-reported base of more than 60,000 traders. Founder Jonathan Hufford, a former City of London derivatives dealer, ran the company as managing director and then CEO for over two decades before moving to a non-executive board role in 2021, when David Mackenzie, who had joined Spreadex in 2003, took over as CEO. The company reported revenue above £69 million for the 2021 financial year. Its major shareholders include Hufford and Bourne Leisure founder Peter Harris. Spreadex appeared in the Sunday Times PwC Profit Track 100 in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and in the Financial Times list of Europe's 1,000 fastest-growing companies in 2017. Spreadex's regulatory record includes two Gambling Commission enforcement actions on its betting business: a £1.36 million settlement in 2022 and a £2.022 million fine in May 2025, both for anti-money-laundering and social-responsibility failures. Separately, its November 2023 acquisition of sports-spread-betting rival Sporting Index from La Française des Jeux drew scrutiny from the Competition and Markets Authority, which found the deal gave Spreadex close to a full share of the UK's licensed online sports spread betting market. After an appeal and remittal, the CMA finalised an order in October 2025 requiring Spreadex to divest the Sporting Index consumer business.
