Billionaire Michael Spencer, who built his fortune leading the broker-dealer ICAP PLC, has hired a former executive from the finance firm to help oversee his personal wealth.
Seth Johnson, 55, in recent weeks became CEO of Spencer’s family office, IPGL, said a spokesman for the firm. His appointment makes him IPGL’s third CEO since the start of 2023 after the departures of Ion Bogdaneris and Samantha Wren last year.
IPGL is one of the largest family offices in the UK. The firm has about £1 billion ($1.27 billion) in net assets, based on latest filings, and oversees stakes in more than three dozen businesses, including UK wine-maker Chapel Down Group PLC.
IPGL also previously invested in the insurance firm Singapore Life Holdings Pte, which Sumitomo Life agreed to acquire last month in a deal that valued the company at S$4.6 billion ($3.5 billion) and is expected to be completed in the first quarter. IPGL made £220 million from the sale after investing about £60 million overall in the Singapore insurer and first backed it as a startup, the spokesman said.
Spencer, 68, founded ICAP in 1986 and built it into one of the world’s biggest broker-dealers, putting him among London’s most prominent figures. The firm later became Nex Group, which Spencer sold to CME Group Inc. in 2018 in a deal that valued the UK firm at £3.9 billion ($5 billion).
Johnson previously worked at Spencer’s financial brokerage business for more than a decade and was leading Nex Group’s electronic trading technology services in the fixed-income and foreign-exchange sectors at the time of the 2018 sale, according to his LinkedIn profile. Spencer, a former Conservative Party treasurer, has previous experience working directly with Johnson, the IPGL spokesman said.
Johnson’s roles after leaving Nex Group include chairman of the London-based foreign-exchange data analytics platform Tradefeedr, where IPGL is a major investor.