In a trading update for the first six months of 2022, from April to September, online broker CMC Markets said it expects net operating income to be approximately £126 million.
Last month, the London-based firm lowered its guidance for full-year revenue to between £250 million and £280 million, an estimate that it reiterated in today’s update. CMC Markets previously expected full-year revenue to be over £330 million.
Leveraged gross client income for H1 FY2022 is anticipated to be around £127 million, compared to £174 million the previous year. Meanwhile, leveraged net trading revenue for the period is expected to be approximately £100 million — half of the £200 million figure previously reported. However, non-leveraged trading revenue is expected to fall to £24 million, only £2 million less than previous predictions, signifying 19% of the group’s net operating income versus 11% in the first half of the previous year.
CMC noted that market trading volumes and volatility picked up towards the latter part of the period and it saw its Australian stockbroking business achieve the highest Assets Under Management (AUM) on record, closing the period with the largest amount of monthly active clients for the year to date.
Lord Cruddas, CEO of CMC, commented:
We closed the first six months with a pickup in market volatility and client trading volumes following what was a more subdued environment from the start of the year. More importantly the big event for the company was the acquisition of the ANZ stockbroking clients. This transaction, when completed (over a 12-18 month period), will boost our non-leveraged business with over 500,000 investing clients with total assets in excess of AUD$45bn. Our non-leveraged business continues to offer the greatest growth potential and now represents approximately 50 per cent of our business in Australia and near 20 per cent of the business overall.
Cruddas continued by saying the brokerage is “on a fast track to diversification, using our existing platform technology to win B2B and B2C non-leveraged business. This will be further boosted with the launch of our new UK investment platform, which will offer both B2C and B2B potential.”
