“We are obviously pleased with our results thus far despite this being a challenging year for the capital market. Our success can be attributed in large to good internal cost management and also favourable return on investments, particularly gain on disposal of investments, that combined, helped offset the lower operating revenue. Barring unforeseen circumstances, we are confident that we will close the year ahead of the forecast published in our prospectus,” said Yusli Mohamed Yusoff, Chief Executive Officer, Bursa Malaysia Berhad.
The Group’s operating revenue for the nine months ended 30 September, 2005 decreased to RM148.3million from RM167.3 million mainly due to lower trading activity. Although trading revenue for the third quarter of 2005 increased marginally to RM28.0 million over the previous year’s figure of RM27.8 million, cumulative trading revenue for the nine months ended 30 September showed a 17% decline to RM87.4 million from RM105.3 million recorded for the same period last year. Total trading value for the 9 months ended 30 September 2005 was RM161.05 billion, compared to RM185.73 million in the corresponding period last year.
Consistent with its performance from previous quarters this year, Bursa Malaysia posted a significant 41.6% reduction in operating expenses, from RM179.7 million in 2004 to RM104.9 million for the nine months ended 30 September 2005.
On the business front, Yusli said, “Thus far, we have been concentrating on rolling a number of initiatives out across the market, to address various gaps existing in the entire supply and demand chain. These measures will take time to yield results. In view of these conditions, we were very mindful of the need to ensure healthy returns on equity for our shareholders, which is why we continue to have a strong emphasis on cost control.”
He also said that he expected the recent measures announced for the National Budget 2006 to have positive impact on the market. “We should see more activity in the market arising from the Budget announcements. The mergers and acquisition measures should create some excitement for investors and the tax-related incentives for REITs will hopefully see a slew of new products being debuted.”
The presentation of the financial results for the third quarter is also available on Bursa’s website (http://www.bursamalaysia.com).
|
|
3 Months Ended |
9 Months Ended |
||
|
|
30.09.2005 |
30.09.2004 |
30.09.2005 |
30.09.2004 |
|
|
RM’million |
RM’million |
RM’million |
RM’million |
|
Operating revenue |
48.5 |
48.2 |
148.3 |
167.3 |
|
Other income |
15.7 |
16.3 |
51.9 |
52.2 |
|
Total revenue |
64.2 |
64.5 |
200.2 |
219.5 |
|
Total operating expenses |
(35.9) |
(49.4) |
(104.9) |
(179.7) |
|
Profit from operations |
28.3 |
15.1 |
95.3 |
39.8 |
|
Finance cost |
(0.1) |
(0.1) |
(0.2) |
(0.1) |
|
Profit before taxation |
28.2 |
15.0 |
95.1 |
39.7 |
|
Taxation |
(5.7) |
(7.2) |
(26.8) |
(21.2) |
|
Minority interest |
(1.6) |
(1.4) |
(3.0) |
(2.6) |
|
Net profit for the period |
20.9 |
6.4 |
65.3 |
15.9 |
