ICAP posts 'good' interim results

ICAP Plc, the world’s largest broker of transactions between banks, reported good revenue and earnings growth for the first half mainly driven by its strong electronic broking franchise.

Pretax profit from continuing operations before one-off items, ICAP’s preferred measure of performance, increased to 183 million pounds ($290 million) from 179 million pounds in the year-ago period.

Group revenue from continuing operations rose 9 percent to 867 million pounds, with revenue from electronic broking up 24 percent increase, post trade risk and information services revenue increasing 30 percent.

ICAP has performed well during the six months....during a period of generally quieter markets ICAP has delivered good revenue and earnings growth driven primarily by our strong electronic broking franchise, chief executive Michael Spencer said on Wednesday.

At ICAP's electronic markets segment, total average daily volumes on the EBS and BrokerTec platforms increased 26 percent to $750.3 billion.

On a statutory basis, the group's pretax profit from continuing operations fell to 116 million pounds for the half year ended September 30 from 150 million pounds, reflecting the impact of the exceptional items and TriOptima's acquisition early this year.

The interdealer broker plans to increase its market share to at least 35 percent of overall interdealer market revenue and to generate operating profit evenly distributed between voice broking, electronic broking and post trade risk and information services.

If the pattern of business we have seen so far continues for the rest of financial year, then the current range of analysts' forecasts for ICAP's profit is reasonable, ICAP said.

The group is active in the wholesale markets in interest rates, credit, commodities, foreign exchange (FX), emerging markets and equity derivatives.

Shares of ICAP ended Tuesday's regular trading session at 465.90 pence on the London Stock Exchange.