IG Group Holdings plc

Yeah, well, the company that

bought Tasty, IG, that's their product, is that they are a CFD firm.

CFDs are illegal in the United States, so don't.

I wouldn't call them.

I don't know.

I've wondered it.

And again, as we just said, IG, our parent company when we owned Tasty, the company that bought us, this was their primary business.

I understand the product.

And these are our main stories.

IG's plans to enter prediction markets.

Oanda Japan's withdrawal suspension after a server hack.

And Naga's falling earnings amid rising marketing costs.

To begin today, IG Group is moving towards a return to betting, with plans to launch prediction markets covering politics, entertainment, and sport.

The company has applied for a UK gambling license through its subsidiary, IG View Limited.

The application is still pending, and IG expects these markets to open in early 2027.

Separately, the broker plans to introduce financial event contracts for UK professional clients in the fourth quarter.

There's an actual study on this which surprised me.

Harvard Business School researchers worked with 78 people at a trading company, IG Group, and gave them writing tasks with and without AI.

With the tools, marketers nearly caught up with the web analysts on analytical work.

But the tech specialists with no writing background still lagged by 13%.

been nervous to buy long term too much recently.

Lovely trade on CMC Markets last week where everyone took a hit because IG put out some pretty poor results.

But I think most people could see that coming because their customer service has been slipping over the last six months and they've been losing a lot of clients.

But that caused, you know, their sector peers like Plus500, CMC to take a bit of a dive as well.

However, if a firm like IG is losing clients, they're going somewhere.

So some of these other firms putting out some nice statements and, you know, we're back up 10, 15% within hours.

So that was a nice one on Friday.

In the horizontal sector, ERP and business software provider Entersoft One was purchased for a bit over $1 billion by PE firm HG Capital, marking its first-ever investment in Greece.

In the consumer sector, Underdog, a daily fantasy sports and prediction markets operator, was pocketed for $1.1 billion by UK-based online trading firm IG Group, deepening its push into the fast-growing US retail speculation market.

Finally, in the IT services sector, US technology solution developer GDT was bought in a $1 billion deal by UK-based IT infrastructure provider Softcat, expanding its footprint into the North American market for AI infrastructure, data centers, and cybersecurity.

Now, let's see how our sectors performed in Q3, starting with horizontal, where sales multiples were three times and EBITDA-based valuations were at 11.3 times.

The results contrast with the wider group's performance, as Citadel Securities reported record annual trading revenue of $12.2 billion, up around 25%.

Turning to prediction markets, IG Group chief executive Breon Corcoran questioned the significance of the trading volume records reported by Kalshi and Polymarket.

Speaking at a seminar about Underdog, the U.S. prediction markets operator IG has agreed to acquire, Corcoran argued that notional volume can exaggerate the economic value of activity.

He illustrated the point with a multi-leg wager, where a $1 stake can produce a notional value worth thousands of dollars.

He said investors should focus instead on handle, which measures actual customer stakes, and net gaming revenue.

IG agreed to pay $1.1 billion up front for Underdog, with a further $200 million possible through an earn-out tied to 2026 revenue.

In cryptocurrency news, Kraken's parent company, Payward, has received full market approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.

The approval completes the licensing process, following preliminary authorization in May.

Back in the day, spread betting was something that was very new.

Citi Index and CMC Markets, all of those companies actually started out as, IG is another one that started out as actually spread betting companies.

And we were allowed to spread bet because it's not listed and it's not on the exchange, so we actually had our ability to get exposure to markets using spread betting.

rather than trading.

Three transactions of about one billion dollars or more were announced or reported in Q3.

IG Group agreed on July thirtieth to buy Underdog for up to one point three billion dollars, and Polymarket raised about one billion dollars at a twenty-one billion dollars valuation in a round led by Seventeen８９ Capital that was reported in September first.

At the end of the quarter, Kalshi was in talks to raise about one billion dollars at forty billion dollars, with Sequoia and Wellington leading.

Its round in May valued it at twenty-two billion dollars.