BME reported a net profit of €63.4 million in H1 2019, marking an 11.8 percent decrease compared to the first half of 2018.
The exchange also reported an accumulated net income of €142.5 million, indicating a 7.9 percent decrease year-on-year, while operating costs stood at €56 million, a 2.9 percent decrease.
Furthermore, the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin for H1 2019 reached €86.5 million, a 10.8 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. This was cited to be a result of a fall in both revenue and operating costs.
The financial results also showed that throughout H1 2019 that BME Clearing took new steps in its objective for diversification with the inclusion of clearing for new assets, such as currency futures contracts.
The clearing businesses total net revenue increased by 2.6 percent in Q2 2019 compared to the same period of 2018.
BME explained that the increase was driven both by the positive performance in trading and the open position of financial derivatives, and also by the activity in energy and interest rate derivatives, which together offset the fall in equities.
The business unit’s EBITDA amounted to €22.3 million, BME suggested that this was a result of a fall in revenue of 1.2 percent offset by a decrease of 6.9 percent in operating costs.
In terms of equity, BME saw an increase of real estate investment trusts (REITs), with the inclusion of four trusts in H1 2019, taking the total admitted REITs to BME to78 companies.
Trading in fixed income increased to €186.4 billion, marking an increase of 74.5 percent, with further increases in admissions of private fixed income and the alternative fixed income market.
