IG : Interim Management Statement

RNS Number: 5153C
IG Group Holdings plc
18 March 2014

IG Group today issues the following Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 December 2013 to 17 March 2014. Unless otherwise stated, trends and figures highlighted below refer to the three months ended 28 February 2014 and the corresponding period last year.

Revenue in the third quarter was £96.7m, 9% ahead of the same period in the prior year. The year-on-year uplift was most marked in an unseasonably strong December, although conditions were reasonably supportive throughout the quarter as the financial markets responded to several catalysts, including the clarity around tapering in the US and weaker than anticipated Chinese economic data.

Revenue and KPIs by region were as follows:

Revenue was well ahead of last year in the UK, Europe and Australia. In the UK the revenue per client uplift of 24% was partially offset by an 11% fall in active clients, with the deliberate de-emphasising of very low value clients continuing to have a year-on-year impact on this metric. In Australia revenue was ahead by 6%, driven by higher revenue per client. Europe continued to make good progress, with a significant increase in both active client numbers and revenue per client. Revenue was ahead in most of our European countries, with particular strength in Germany and France. The Rest of World segment was impacted by year-on-year weakness in Singapore and Japan, predominantly due to continuing dull forex markets. In the US, Nadex continued to experience steady growth in the number of members trading on the exchange each month.

In January, as part of enhancing its offering for US investors in IG, the company launched a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) programme, under the symbol IGGHY, supported by Citi as the depositary bank.

Following another good quarter and assuming that financial market conditions continue to be supportive in the fourth quarter, IG remains on track to deliver revenue ahead of the prior year and in line with full year expectations for FY14. Operating costs for the full year are now expected to come in below previous guidance, with hiring taking a little longer than anticipated and a reduction of around £2m in the FSCS charge for the FY14 year, following the announcement that the FSCS no longer expects to raise an interim levy this year.

IG's long-term aim is to become the default choice for active traders to access the financial markets. As part of this, as laid out at the time of the half year results in January, the company is investing over the next few years in a range of initiatives to broaden the business offering, extend its technology lead, particularly in the mobile space, and to expand further geographically. The group continues to make good progress on these initiatives, which it believes will generate long-term sustainable growth.

Today there will be a conference call for analysts and investors at 8.30am (UK time). The call can be accessed by dialling +44 20 3059 8125. A replay of the conference call will be available for a week after the event by dialling +44 121 260 4861 and using passcode 9018975#, and it will be archived for access at www.iggroup.com/investors

The next planned performance announcement from IG is the H2 FY14 pre-close update, currently scheduled for 27 May 2014.

For further information, please contact:

IG Group
Kieran McKinney
Head of Investor Relations 020 7573 0026

FTI
Neil Doyle/Ed Berry 020 7269 7237/7297

(1) References in this statement to "revenue" refer to net trading revenue, which is trading revenue excluding interest on segregated client funds and is net of introducing broker commissions.

(2) References in this statement to active clients are to the number of clients trading during the period referred to and references to average revenue per client are to revenue for the period referred to divided by the number of active clients in that period.