At €543.1 million, sales revenues were up by 17 percent on Q1 2006 (€464.7 million); a further €46.1 million was generated from net interest income from banking business (Q1/2006: €34.3 million).

Costs in the first quarter included expenses of around €18 million relating to the departure of Executive Board members and the development and implementation of a new management structure; an additional amount of around €33 million was allocated to provisions for the company's stock option program due to the steep increase in the price of Deutsche Börse AG's shares of 23 percent in the first quarter of 2007. In spite of these effects, EBITA rose to a new record of €300.3 million in Q1 (Q1/2006: €257.0 million), up by 17 percent. Earnings per share for the average of 97.6 million outstanding shares rose to €1.97 (Q1/2006: €1.61 for 100.5 million shares).

Deutsche Börse's CEO Reto Francioni spoke optimistically about the strong start to the year, "The first quarter provides impressive proof of the earnings power of our business model. Structural growth drivers in all business areas, coupled with increased volatility on the global markets contributed to the strong increase in revenues. Despite extraordinary effects on costs, EBITA and net income reached new record levels."

Segment reporting

Sales revenue in the Xetra segment rose by 33 percent to €111.0 million in the first quarter (Q1/2006: €83.2 million), largely due to the increased trading activity on the Xetra trading platform. In addition, the joint venture with SWX in the area of structured products, launched on 1 January 2007, was fully consolidated for the first time. The number of transactions on Xetra increased by 49 percent to 39.8 million (Q1/2006: 26.8 million transactions). EBITA climbed 47 percent to €69.9 million (Q1/2006: €47.7 million).

Sales revenue in the Eurex segment amounted to €178.3 million in the first quarter - a year-on-year increase of 20 percent (Q1/2006: €148.3 million).
This growth is primarily a result of the 25 percent climb in contract volume. Equity and index products contributed 56 percent of the total contract volume in Q1, while 44 percent was attributable to interest rate products. EBITA climbed by 15 percent to €117.1 million (Q1/2006: €101.9). A refund of non-recoverable input tax of around €7 million had a positive one-off effect on EBITA in Q1 2006.

Total revenue in the Clearstream segment (sales revenue including net interest income from banking business) increased by 11 percent to €233.0 million (Q1/2006: €210.8 million). The main drivers were international custody and settlement. Custody volume rose by 9 percent year-on-year to €10.0 trillion (Q1/2006: €9.1 trillion), settlement instructions increased by 6 percent to 18.9 million instructions (Q1/2006: 17.7 million instructions). EBITA in this segment rose by 14 percent in the first quarter to €90.3 million (Q1/2006: €79.2 million).

Market Data & Analytics also showed positive sales revenue development, recording an increase of 18 percent to €41.7 million (Q1/2006: €35.3 million). The increase was driven, in particular, by newly acquired users of price and trading data on the cash and derivatives markets, as well as by growth in the Group's index products. The segment boosted its EBITA by 80 percent to €19.8 million (Q1/2006: €11.0 million).

Sales revenue in the Information Technology segment amounted to €25.2 million in the first quarter (Q1/2006: €21.4 million). This increase is largely a result of the higher volume of orders with existing clients, as well as to the fact that the segment gained new clients. EBITA in this segment rose by 22 percent year-on-year to €23.1 million (Q1/2006: €18.9 million).

Read the full statement here:Download the document now 1.5 mb (Adobe Acrobat Document)