French trading technology vendor GL Trade is reporting a EUR3 million (19.5%) decline in operating profit from EUR28 to EUR25 for the year ending December 2003.
Ebitda at EUR30.5 million was 23.7% down on 2002 as total turnover dipped 0.6% to EUR128.1 million. This figure includes sales of EUR2.8 million from the three activities of Misys Securities Trading Systems (MSTS) acquired in November 2003 in London, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
Restated for negative exchange rate effects and change in the scope of consolidation, sales would have grown by 2.4%, says the vendor.
For 2004 the group is targeting growth of between 15% and 20%, including MSTS and GLESIA, the Italian back office joint venture set up with SIA last month.
Seperately, GL Trade has extended direct access connectivity to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) and trading interfaces to local brokerage firms via order routing network GL Net.