Bursa Malaysia Registers Profit After Tax And Minority Interest Of RM148.0 Million For 9 Months Results Ended 30 September 2015

Growth in 9 months 2015 PATAMI despite challenging 3Q 2015

Bursa Malaysia Berhad (“Bursa Malaysia” or “the Exchange”) registered a 2.0 per cent increase in profit after tax and minority interest (“PATAMI”) at RM148.0 million for the nine months ended 30 September 2015 (“9M2015”) compared to the last corresponding period on the back of higher operating revenue.  The annualised return on equity (“ROE”) and cost-to-income ratio remained stable at 26 per cent and 46 per cent respectively for the periods under review.

Dato’ Tajuddin Atan, Chief Executive Officer of Bursa Malaysia said, “PATAMI is up due to the resilient performance of our Securities Market which was supported by continued growth in our Derivatives Market and Islamic Capital Market.  Crude Palm Oil Futures contracts (“FCPO”) and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Futures (“FKLI”) have seen an increase in trading activities due to higher market volatility.  Bursa Suq Al-Sila (“BSAS") has seen continued high growth due to the ongoing conversion to Murabaha following the introduction of tenor based pricing earlier this year.  Despite ongoing volatility, market integrity remains intact and on the whole our capital market has demonstrated resilience, which underscores the strength of its fundamentals.  On our part Bursa Malaysia has stepped up its efforts to further build on these fundamentals by advocating sustainable business practices amongst our public listed companies.

The most recent effort to drive sustainability in the marketplace was the introduction of a sustainability guidebook, which adds to previous milestones in our decade long sustainability journey, such as becoming a signatory to the Sustainable Stock Exchange initiative, implementing the globally benchmarked FTSE4Good ESG Index, and the CSR Framework and Governance requirements for listed companies.”

For the period under review, the average daily trading value (“ADV”) for Securities Market’s on-market trades eased 6.2 per cent to RM1.97 billion. Average daily contracts (“ADC”) for Derivatives Market climbed 16.7 per cent to 57,552 contracts as a result of an increase in the volume of FCPO and FKLI contracts. For the Islamic Capital Market, BSAS recorded an impressive leap to 137.7 per cent in its ADV to RM13.8 billion. Operating expenses increased marginally by 1.0 per cent to RM174.7 million.

PATAMI for the third quarter of 2015 (“3Q2015”) was down 3.1 per cent compared to the corresponding quarter of last year as a result of higher operating expenses.  The ADV for Securities Market’s on-market trades was lower by 12.0 per cent to RM1.93 billion, while ADC traded for the Derivatives Market increased by 14.7 per cent to 61,954 contracts in 3Q2015. For the Islamic Capital Market, the ADV of BSAS increased to RM16.0 billion, up 120.7 per cent.

Dato’ Tajuddin concluded, “On our part, there are several initiatives which we will roll out in the remaining quarter of 2015 to further develop the retail segment, amongst which will see the month of November dedicated to raising awareness of the Islamic Capital Market and also an Investor Weekend where we will feature the depth and diversity of our offerings. This is in addition to our retail outreach programmes both locally and in the region.”

The financial results for the quarter ended 30 September 2015 are available on Bursa Malaysia’s website (www.bursamalaysia.com).