Proactive Investors - Acquis Exchange PLC reported 24% growth in revenue and 41% in underlying profit as it outperformed the London Stock Exchange's AIM in terms of initial public offers last year, and also licensed its exchange technology out with two new contracts.
Net revenue came to £20.1mln for the 2022 calendar year, versus £16.2mln last time, while underlying profit rose to £4.7mln from £3.3mln.
Statutory profit before tax rose 27% to £4.5mln, while basic earnings per share were flat at 17p.
Cash and cash equivalents inched up to £14.2mln at year end, with no debt.
Chief executive Alasdair Haynes hailed milestones reached in each of the recently rebranded divisions, including 22 new listings for the Aquis Stock Exchange – “the most of any growth exchange in the UK”, the launch and growth of a dark pools offering by Aquis Markets and “significant interest” in Aquis Technologies exchange technology and particularly its cloud-native and 24/7 functionality.
Aquis Markets, formerly called Aquis Exchange , grew its trading member numbers from 38 to 41 and a number of members increased their activity levels, with more than 2,000 stocks and ETFs available to trade across 16 European markets, leading to revenues increasing 15% to £12.4mln.
With the Aquis Matching Pool dark pools launch offsetting a decrease in Lit volumes, the company expressed confidence that the introduction of new innovative order types planned for 2023, “our lower toxicity and high available liquidity will ultimately underpin long-term market growth”.
Aquis Technologies, where the company licenses its exchange related technology to international financial services clients across different asset classes, extended one contract and secured two new contracts, bringing the total to seven.
Net revenue from the Technologies division grew 51% to £5.2mln and it has a “strong pipeline and offers material future growth opportunities”.
So far in 2023 the company, which is itself listed on the Aquis Stock Exchange and on the LSE's Alternative Investment Market, reported an “encouraging start”, with trading “in line with expectations, notwithstanding continued macroeconomic uncertainty”.