London Capital Group Holdings plc (LON:LCG), the provider of spread betting and CFD trading services, saw its shares rise 11% after reporting its final financial metrics for 2014.
The 2014 results themselves were far from strong, showing a drop in profits and revenues, but markets were obviously disregarding these and focusing on the 2015 forecast by the newly appointed chief executive of LCG – Charles-Henri Sabet. The outlook was rather optimistic, with Mr Sabet saying the group was on the right trajectory to return to growth in the second half of 2015.
The group management made it clear that the transformation of business, which has just commenced, follows a strictly formulated long-term strategy, with the key phrase being “overseas markets expansion”. The group has already rolled out a new Metatrader 4 platform and a new portal, with the expansion plans envisaging multilingual versions of MT4 to come to being.
If markets were paying attention to anything in the 2014 data at all yesterday, that was the positive upturn in metrics towards the end of 2014, after the group received the £17 million financing package, aimed at its revitalization. About 75% of LCG’s pre-takeover employees had been let go, with a new management now in place. Of course, the results of the efforts of that new management team, led by Mr Sabet, are yet to be seen.
Shares in LCG traded in the range 19.00p – 24.00p on Wednesday (March 25, 2015), with the chart below giving more information on the particular moves of the share price during that day.
Photo credit: Google Finance.