Moscow Exchange (MOEX) today announced its financial results for the year ended 31 December 2017. Higher trading volumes in the Bond Market and Money Market, supported by solid performance of Depository and Settlement Services, helped the Exchange achieve record fee and commission income.
KEY FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2017
- Fee and commission (F&C) income up 7.1% YoY to a record RUB 21.21 bln on the back of higher volumes and the introduction of new products and services.
- Net interest and other finance income down 27.1% YoY to RUB 17.29 bln, due to declining interest rates in a low inflation environment.
- Operating costs excluding D&A expenses up 5.2% YoY to RUB 10.48 bln.
EBITDA margin was 72.8% (vs 77.1% in 2016). - Net income was RUB 20.26 bln, down 19.6% YoY; basic EPS was RUB 9.02.
KEY BUSINESS & CORPORATE HIGHLIGHTS FOR 2017
- MOEX remained the main platform for Russian issuers to raise capital via public markets, with 16 equity offerings (including three IPOs) and 260 bond issues.
- MOEX provided large Russian corporates with direct access to the FX and Money Markets, thereby expanding the number of market participants and stimulating additional liquidity. Today 22 non-financial companies trade directly on the FX Market and 47 trade directly on the Money Market.
- MOEX expanded its product offering by launching trading in new instruments across its markets: new contracts on sugar and grain, options on GBP/USD and USD/JPY, new maturities of RTS and USD/RUB options as well as FX fixing instruments.
- The first phase of the Unified Collateral Pool (UCP) was launched, allowing single-account functionality, unification of collateral management and netting of settlements.
- A new segment of the Equity and Bond Market, the Growth Sector, was established to attract SMEs to raise capital via the Exchange.
- Retail investors opened approximately 250,000 new brokerage accounts, bringing the total to 1.9 mln at year-end 2017. The number of Individual Investment Accounts held by private investors reached 302,000 at year-end, compared to 195,200 a year earlier.
- MOEX established MOEX Innovations, a subsidiary company focused on innovative technologies and collaboration with fintech start-ups. MOEX pioneered a first bond placement via blockchain-based technology.
Alexander Afanasiev, Chief Executive Officer of Moscow Exchange, said:
MOEX’s strong results for the year, particularly continued growth of fee and commission income, underscore the strengths of the Exchange’s multi-product business model. In 2017 trading volumes in many asset classes – bonds, repo with the CCP and repo with GCC, currency swaps and commodity derivatives – reached all time highs. We are breaking new ground with the inflow of savings from Russian individual investors: last year 250 thousand retail investors opened new brokerage accounts. These new investors, as one would expect, begin investing with less risky fixed income products, and as their financial acumen increases we see them becoming more active in equities and derivatives. We are rolling out a digital platform together with brokers to attract individual investors to the Exchange’s markets, and intend to pro-actively market it.
Despite a challenging geopolitical backdrop, we are seeing increased trading volumes from international investors, meaning that the quality of our market infrastructure, our openness and the fundamental attractiveness of the assets traded on our platform are outweighing potential concerns. We continue to actively invest in developing innovative services, most notably in the areas of Big Data and blockchain technologies.
Maxim Lapin, Chief Financial Officer of Moscow Exchange, said:
We delivered strong fee and commission (F&C) income performance in 2017, up 7.1% YoY on the back of higher trading volumes and the successful roll-out of new products and services. The biggest contributors to F&C income growth were the Bond Market (+33.7% YoY) and the Money Market (+16.8% YoY) as well as Depository and Settlement Services (+17.4% YoY). I am pleased that our business model is evolving as expected and that the share of F&C in total operating income was more than 60% in the last quarter of 2017. Interest income decreased by 27.1% YoY due to declining RUB interest rates and lower client balances compared to the previous year.
We ended the year with cost growth below our expectations at the start of the year. Operating costs increased by 9.6% YoY, which is largely attributable to the increase in D&A expenses following large-scale capital expenditures in 2016 associated with migration to a new data centre and other measures to improve the reliability of our trading and clearing platforms. Excluding D&A expenses, our operating costs were up only 5.2% YoY. Going forward, operational efficiency and cost control will remain key priorities.
As far as its FX market goes, total trading volumes on the Moscow Exchange FX Market increased by 5.4% YoY and reached RUB 347.67 trln. Spot trading volumes declined by 26.9% YoY, impacted by lower volatility of the Rouble. Trading volumes in the swap and forward segment increased by 20.9% YoY. Swaps accounted for 77.5% of total FX Market trading volumes. Fee and commission income from the FX Market amounted to RUB 3.83 bln, down by 11.9% YoY as the effective commission for swaps is lower than for spot trades.
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
| RUB, mln | FY 2017 | FY 2016 | Change | 4Q 2017 | 4Q 2016 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Income | 38,538.9 | 43,567.2 | -11.5% | 9,591.4 | 10,236.2 | -6.3% |
| Fee and commission income | 21,207.6 | 19,797.6 | 7.1% | 5,790.8 | 5,165.1 | 12.1% |
| Net interest and other finance income | 17,285.3 | 23,695.0 | -27.1% | 3,785.4 | 5,022.9 | -24.6% |
| Other operating income | 46.0 | 74.6 | -38.3% | 15.2 | 48.2 | -68.5% |
| Operating Expenses | 13,431.8 | 12,259.4 | 9.6% | 3,630.1 | 3,350.6 | 8.3% |
| Operating Profit | 25,107.1 | 31,307.8 | -19.8% | 5,961.3 | 6,885.6 | -13.4% |
| Net Profit | 20,255.2 | 25,182.6 | -19.6% | 4,814.5 | 5,505.6 | -12.6% |
| Basic earnings per share, RUB | 9.02 | 11.22 | -19.6% | 2.15 | 2.44 | -11.9% |
| EBITDA | 28,059.6 | 33,602.1 | -16.5% | 6,729.0 | 7,566.0 | -11.1% |
| EBITDA margin | 72.8% | 77.1% | -4.3 pp | 70.2% | 73.9% | -3.8 pp |