Peter Cruddas peerage may be controversial, but his CMC Markets is the second biggest share price riser of 2020
Tycoon and former Conservative Party Treasurer Peter Cruddas may be under fire for having been given a peerage today, but he can take comfort as the company that made his fortune was Britain’s second most successful share in the FTSE-100 for 2020.
City spread betting giant CMC Markets is set to end the year up a mighty 183%, second only to household goods retailer AO World at the top of the league.
CMC made huge profits as people stuck at home during the lockdown spent their time day trading and trying to guess which way the markets were moving during the turbulent early weeks of Covid-19.
Cruddas’s 60% stake in the business has shot up in value by around £450 million to £704 million during the year.
His dividend alone last month was £16 million, making him one of the City’s most successful entrepreneurs of recent times.
As he told the Evening Standard then: “The natural assumption is that there are some businesses that are going to benefit and some that are not. Plainly we are benefiting.”
Brexiteer Cruddas stuck by Johnson throughout his turbulent handling of the Covid crisis.
The Lords Appointments Commission said he should not have been ennobled because he had to quit as Tory party Treasurer in 2012 following cash-for-access allegations.
He later won a libel case against a newspaper over its claims.
Johnson rejected the commission’s recommendations, becoming the first PM to ignore its advice on a nomination since it was set up in 2000.
