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LONDON (Alliance News) - CMC Markets PLC, the financial trading provider founded by Chief Executive Peter Cruddas, on Wednesday declared its first dividend as a publicly listed company and reported a 23% jump in full-year pretax profit.
CMC, which will join the FTSE 250 index of mid-cap companies listed in London on June 20, said it made a GBP53.4 million pretax profit in the financial year ended March 31, up from GBP43.5 million a year earlier, as net operating income rose to GBP169.4 million from GBP143.6 million.
The company reported 66.8 million trades by its clients in the financial year, up from 44.6 million a year earlier, with the number of active clients up to 57,329 from 50,303.
CMC, which joined the London Stock Exchange in February, declared a total dividend of 8.9 pence, up from 5.7p the prior year, and has a policy of paying 50% of underlying profit after tax to shareholders.
The company said it is on track to achieve its targeted GBP250 million of total annual revenue before rebates, equivalent to GBP220 million net operating income in the financial year ending March 2020, even though there has been "some recent easing" of trading activity.
"Our clear strategy to provide our clients with the best trading platform, superior service and competitive pricing, with a strong focus on innovation, has delivered another strong performance, with profit before tax up by over 20%. But we're not standing still," Cruddas said in a statement.
"We continue to add new products, open new offices and offer new features and tools through our award-winning Next Generation trading platform. Despite a recent easing of trading activity, with these developments and our excellent team, I am confident that CMC will continue to deliver further strong growth," Cruddas said.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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