Icap profits from turbulence
Michael Spencer, Group Chief Executive of ICAP plc, the world's largest voice and electronic interdealer broker, will make the following comments at today's Annual General Meeting.
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"ICAP has enjoyed a very encouraging start to the year in both our electronic and voice broking businesses. The wholesale financial markets during the first three months of our financial year have all been very active compared with the same period last year, with particularly high levels of market activity during May.
ICAP has benefited from the recent market turbulence. In particular, emerging markets and foreign exchange benefited from very volatile conditions and equity derivatives were especially active. Interest rate swaps in most markets were busier than they have been for some time. Government bond market volumes on the other hand have maintained similar levels to last year. The credit markets saw spreads briefly widen in May before the markets calmed again but volumes in the credit default swap market have continued to grow with the electronic portion of our business in Europe rising significantly.
We have already made good progress with the integration of EBS in the six weeks since the acquisition was completed and are confident that the integration savings will exceed our initial forecasts. The EBS business is performing very well.
We remain comfortable with the consensus of the forecasts prepared by analysts."