London, 12 May 2020: Numis Corporation Plc (“Numis”) today announces unaudited interim results for the period ended 31 March 2020.
Highlights
· Resilient business performance despite volatile market conditions during the 6 month period ending with the unprecedented impact of COVID-19
· Investment Banking revenues down 5% due to lower deal volumes in line with the UK market
· Equities revenue increased 55% reflecting higher market activity levels and strong trading gains
· Market declines at the end of the period resulted in £1.9m write down of the Investment portfolio
· All business lines fully operational with all staff working from home
· Resilient returns; dividend maintained at 5.5p and £5.5m spent on share repurchases
· Strong balance sheet; cash position materially higher and undrawn credit facility
Key statistics
Financial highlights | H1 2020 | H1 2019 | Change |
Revenue | £63.1m | £55.7m | 13.3% |
Underlying Operating profit | £9.1m | £8.1m | 12.4% |
Profit before tax | £7.3m | £7.1m | 2.1% |
EPS | 6.0p | 5.4p | 11.2% |
Cash | £95.3m | £78.9m | 20.9% |
Net assets | £136.7m | £140.2m | (2.5)% |
Operating highlights | |||
Corporate clients | 209 | 214 | (2.3)% |
Average market cap of clients | £692m | £836m | (17.2)% |
Revenue per head (annualised) | £449k | £401k | 12.0% |
Operating margin | 14.5% | 14.6% | (0.1)ppts |
Spend on share repurchases | £5.5m | £7.5m | (26.2)% |
Notes:
1) Revenue, Underlying Operating profit, Operating margin and Revenue per head all exclude investment income / losses
2) Basic EPS
Alex Ham and Ross Mitchinson, Co-Chief Executive Officers, said:
“During these unprecedented times our priority has been protecting our staff and continuing to support our clients in such difficult circumstances. We are proud of the commitment demonstrated by our people and grateful for their efforts in ensuring our business activities suffered no disruption and our quality of service remains uncompromised.
Over many years we have built an enviable corporate client base. Many of these companies are now facing significant challenges as a result of COVID-19 and our support for a number of these businesses in recent weeks has included raising equity to provide additional liquidity headroom in response to the disruption they are suffering. Our near term performance will likely be determined by the frequency of these deals given the immediate headwinds facing M&A, IPOs and other corporate transactions.
Whilst the pandemic is currently dominating markets, this event will eventually pass and the strength of our balance sheet ensures we can continue to focus on our long term strategic priorities. Our stability and consistency has underpinned our ability to capture market share gains through difficult market environments in the past and we expect to emerge from this challenging period with our business in a strong position.”
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