Financial data outfit Markit beat market estimates in its first set of reports as a public company, recording an 11% rise in second quarter revenues.
Revenues for the three months were $265 million, compared to 238.3 million for same period in 2013 and above the Wall Street expectations of $256 million. Adjusted Ebitda grew 7.7% year over year to $120 million, while adjusted earnings were $68.3 million and adjusted earnings per share, diluted were $0.37, down from $0.41.
Lance Uggla, CEO, Markit, says: "Notwithstanding the continuing challenges in the financial markets, particularly in fixed income, we remain well positioned to deliver on our longterm financial objectives of organic revenue growth of 5% to 7%, overall double digit revenue growth including acquisitions and adjusted Ebitda margin in the low to mid 40s."
Founded in 2003, Markit has grown to rival Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg as a third force in the provision of financial information to banks worldwide and now claims more than 3000 institutional customers.
In June it raised $1.3 billion by listing on the Nasdaq in an IPO, as 12 of its bank owners, which include Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, offloaded their shares.
The firm has expanded beyond its initial focus of providing pricing for the credit markets through a series of acquisitions to include post-trade processing, risk analytics and, most recently, KYC and chat services.
Uggla says that the firm will continue to look at possible acquisitions and the Wall Street Journal reports that it is pondering a bid for the fixed-income index unit of Barclays. Rival Bloomberg is also interested in the business, says the WSJ, with offers in the region of $1 billion discussed.