Source: Deutsche Börse
Deutsche Börse AG recorded another year-on-year increase in sales revenue in the second quarter, posting its third-best quarterly results to date.
At EUR 359.0 million, sales revenue was up 2 percent on Q2/2003 (EUR351.9 million). The company generated a further EUR19.9 million from net interest income from banking business (Q2/2003: EUR23.8 million). Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) were only slightly below the previous year at EUR112.7 million (Q2/2003: EUR 115.3 million).
Deutsche Börse AG's CFO Mathias Hlubek commented: "We are delighted with our results for the second quarter. In our core business, we continued the successes of previous years and further extended our healthy market position. The increasingly positive business development at Clearstream again reflects the benefits of our diversification." Clearstream's securities custody services and cash market trading have both profited from the recovery on the equity markets, added Hlubek. "On the basis of our earnings for the first half of the year, we are confident that we will achieve our EBIT target of at least EUR450 million."
The company's segment reporting shows that Clearstream again recorded the highest sales revenue in the second quarter - up 8 percent to EUR144.3 million (Q2/2003: EUR 134.2 million). In its largest business area, custody, volumes increased by 7 percent year-on-year to EUR7,700 billion. Segment EBIT rose by 9 percent to EUR33.4 million (Q2/2003: EUR30.7 million) on the back of reduced costs. Among other things, the fall in costs is due to substantial cost synergies from the integration of Clearstream with Deutsche Börse Group.
The Eurex segment generated sales revenue of EUR101.7 million - just under last year's record figure (Q2/2003: EUR103.9 million). At EUR42.1 million, EBIT in the derivatives market was also down year-on-year (Q2/2003: EUR59.7 million). Segment costs increased in line with forecasts due to the development and operation of the Eurex US trading platform. 553 million contracts were traded on Eurex in the first six months, compared with 524 million in the prior-year period.
The Xetra segment grew by 4 percent and recorded sales revenue of EUR52.3 million, as against EUR50.4 million in Q2 2003. Its EBIT almost tripled to EUR18.1 million (Q2/2003: EUR6.9 million) on the back of lower costs. The sharp increase in this segment's margin is due to the launch of the central counterparty for the cash market in April last year, which led to higher costs in the prior-year period. According to order book statistics, turnover of German and international equities increased by 27 percent in the first six months from EUR420.5 billion (January - June 2003) to EUR 533.6 billion (January - June 2004).
The Information Technology segment generated external sales revenue of EUR30.7 million in the second quarter, compared with EUR33 million in the prior-year period. Following a reduction in costs for development and IT services and an increase in internally generated sales revenue to EUR45.1 million (Q2/2003: EUR40.5 million), EBIT improved by 54 percent to EUR27.6 million (Q2/2003: EUR17.9 million).
Information Technology acquired new business as a result of the agreements entered into with Deutsche WertpapierService Bank (dwpbank) and the EEX energy exchange at the end of last year. Since December 2003, Information Technology has operated all of dwpbank's mainframe applications and its server system from Deutsche Börse Group's datacentre. The Group's systems also process all of EEX's energy trading activities.
At EUR30.0 million, Information Services generated almost the same level of sales revenue as in the previous year (Q2/2003: EUR30.4 million). Costs were reduced by 5 percent and EBIT fell slightly to EUR11.1 million (Q2/2003: EUR12.6 million).