Fidessa boss predicts future equity revival
SOFTWARE group Fidessa, the biggest supplier of trading software to the City, yesterday gave an upbeat forecast for equity markets amid hopes the decline in the market has finally bottomed out.
The group, listed on the FTSE 250, reported flat revenues and a small dip in pre-tax profits for the year ending December 2012 yesterday after facing some of the lowest trading volumes in almost a decade last year.
But boss Chris Aspinwall yesterday said the flood of money into equities in January pointed to a reversal of fortunes for equity markets.
“We’ve seen some good inflows coming back into the equity markets,” he said. “We have got a better market sentiment coming into this year than we’ve had for probably the last five years.”
The global value of equity trading fell about 20 per cent last year, according to Fidessa, compounding the depressed levels seen in 2011.
The business, which had revenues of £278.6m last year, predicted similar levels of sales and profits for the rest of 2013 but an increase in business numbers afterwards.
Fidessa added about £1m to its cash balances for the year and paid a special dividend, taking total dividend payouts up to £30.2m.