Reporting a bump in second quarter net income, exchange operator Nasdaq has reiterated its repositioning as a capital markets technology and analytics provider.
Late last year Nasdaq paid $705 million to buy eVestment, a data, content and analytics platform for institutional investors, as part of an effort to focus in on its tech offerings.
The firm doubled down on the strategy in April, offloading its Public Relations Solutions and Digital Media Services businesses for $335 million, saying it wanted to rebalance its "organic investments to focus more on the higher growth opportunities while becoming more transparent around capital objectives to drive returns for shareholders".
At the same time, the exchange operator continues to advance its "markets economy" strategy of delivering trading systems to clients outside of traditional financial markets, including in the crypto-currency space, where Nasdaq now claims five customers using its technology for trading, clearing or surveillance.
CEO Adena Friedman says Nasdaq is "continuing to build for the future by strategically repositioning the company, as demonstrated by the completion of our business divestiture in April and our continued organic investments to implement the Nasdaq Financial Framework technology offering and advance our information services businesses".
The company reported second quarter net revenues of $615 million, three per cent up on Q2 2017. On a GAAP basis, net income was $162 million, up 14% from $146 million. Market technology accounted for 11% of total net revenues, bringing in $66 million, a 14% increase on the same period in 2017. Information services saw revenues of $175 million, up 22%.