Icap is in good shape, says Spencer
ICAP, the world’s biggest interdealer broker, yesterday said it had maintained or slightly improved second-half profit margins and said it expected pretax profit roughly in line with forecasts.
The company said profit for the year to the end of March would be between £295m and £315m before tax, amortisation and impairment of intangibles arising on consolidation and exceptional items – unchanged from its previous guidance in February.
“Overall our business is in good shape and our revenue in the second half of the year is expected to be in line with the first half,” chief executive Michael Spencer said in a statement. He added the company believed its share of the interdealer broking markets’ revenue increased in 2009 compared with the previous year, although overall industry revenue declined.
The statement follows a shock profit warning in early February that wiped a fifth off its stock market value. Average daily volumes on Icap’s electronic broking platforms BrokerTec and EBS increased 23 per cent in January and February on the previous year. Total average daily volumes in fixed income, including US Treasury products, US repo and European repo products, were up 31 per cent in the two months at $525bn, it added.