Saxo Capital Markets UK Limited, the FCA-regulated arm of Denmark-based multi asset broker Saxo Bank, has reported its 2015 financial statement and report which clearly show some good news and overall progress for the business, but also some bad news.
To dispense first with the bad news, Saxo UK posted that it took a £7 million (USD $8.5 million) one-time hit from the January 2015 Swiss Franc spike. The CHF loss, in the form of negative client balances, brought Saxo Bank UK to an overall net loss (£802,000) in 2015 from a £4.4 million profit the prior year.
The CHF-related loss for Saxo UK shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. We had reported earlier that the Saxo Bank Group globally took a fairly large $105 million writeoff in the first half of 2015 related to the events of January 15, 2015. Saxo Bank moved fairly swiftly after the Swiss Franc ‘Black Swan’ event to shore up its capital base, by selling a 2.5% stake in Saxo Bank to US-based CarVal valuing the company at €1.25B and raising €77.5M.
Back to the good news…. other than the one-time CHF issue, Saxo UK had a pretty good year. Revenues were up by 7% to £14.3 million in 2015. Client money held at Saxo UK rose by 19% to £229 million. Again, not surprising, as we had reported earlier this year that Saxo UK had grown to a 7% market share and #3 position in UK CFD trading, behind just industry leader IG Group Holdings plc (LON:IGG) and fast-rising #2 Plus500 Ltd (LON:PLUS).
Saxo UK income statement for 2015 follows:
