aim wspr industry financial services fate special administration founded 2000 2000 defunct 2012 2012 headquarters dublin ireland services online trading cfds spread betting number of employees 66 website www.worldspreads.com worldspreads was a financial spread trading company registered in ireland but operating from london that offered trading on financial markets . the company became bankrupt in march 2012 after it was reported that the company did not have enough funds to meet its client liabilities . there were reports that it had been misusing client funds and not keeping them segregated as required under its license possible for a number of years prior to its demise . the failure of the business generated criticism of regulators and auditors for not having spotted the activity . 1 2 history edit the company was founded in 2000 as a sports spread betting business . it went on to expand into financial spread trading which became the dominant part of its business . the company sold the irish part of its business to a group of local manager for 9.9 m in 2007 . 3 in 2008 it relocated the bulk of its operations to london from dublin and listed on the london based alternative investment market aim and obtained a license from the uk financial services authority . it expanded over the following few years opening offices in a number of european countries and growing its market share of the uk financial spread betting market . bankruptcy edit on 19 march 2012 worldpsreads entered administration . 4 on that date it appeared that there was only 16.6 m of the 29.7 m of customer money left that should have been in the business to cover customer balances . the demise of the company followed the departure of the company s finance director niall o kelly . it was suggested in a reuters article as not unconnected . the irregularities emerged soon after his exit . 5 worldspreads had over 5000 spread betting customers at the point it went in special administration . almost all clients were covered under the uk financial services compensation scheme and were paid compensation by the scheme . 6 7 references edit worldspreads and fsa alerted to alleged fraud . financial times . may 15 2012 . police to investigate collapsed financial bookmaker worldspreads . theguardian . 19 march 2012 . worldspreads sells irish arm to management . rt . 10 august 2009 . appointment of joint special administrators . advfn news . 19 march 2012 . worldspreads enters administration owing clients millions . reuters . mar 19 2012 . worldspreads directors accused of bet scandal . the telegraph . april 6 2012 . worldspreads limited special administration . kpmg . november 23 2012 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title worldspreads & oldid 600091771 categories financial derivative trading companies navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 18 march 2014 at 00 38 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view