Bursa Malaysia Registers Profit After Tax And Minority Interest (Patami) Of RM47.1 Million In First Quarter Of 2015

Bursa Malaysia Berhad (“Bursa Malaysia” or “the Exchange”) registered a PATAMI of RM47.1 million, up by 4 percent for the first quarter ended 31 March 2015 (“1Q2015”) compared to the same period last year on the back of higher operating revenue. On an annualised basis, the return on equity recorded an increase from 23 percent in 1Q2014 to 26 percent in 1Q2015.

Dato’ Tajuddin Atan, Chief Executive Officer of Bursa Malaysia said, “Despite a challenging and volatile global environment the first quarter results maintain a positive growth.  PATAMI is stable due to an increase in operating revenue as a result of a better performance by the Derivatives Market and the Bursa Suq Al-Sila (“BSAS”) while the performance of the Securities Market was maintained.  On the Derivatives front, Bursa Malaysia has seen increased activities from higher volatility in commodity prices and the weakening of the ringgit against the dollar.  BSAS was boosted by a continued rise in domestic and foreign participation.  We remain cautiously optimistic that our strong economic fundamentals will continue to support positive investor sentiment.” 

For the period under review, the year-on-year (“yoy”) average daily trading value (“ADV”) for Securities Market’s on-market trades rose by 1 percent to RM2.08 billion as a result of higher trading participation from foreign institutions. Average daily contracts (“ADC”) for Derivatives Market grew by 21 percent to 60,335 contracts largely driven by the increase in the volume of the crude palm oil futures (“FCPO”) contracts and the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI Index futures (“FKLI”) contracts. On the Islamic front, BSAS recorded a 133 percent increase in its ADV to RM11.87 billion with continuous growth from domestic participation.  Operating expenses remained constant at RM60.2 million and the cost to income ratio improved to 47% in 1Q2015 from 49% in 1Q2014.

Bursa Malaysia’s 1Q2015 PATAMI was down 11 percent compared to the preceding quarter ending 31 December 2014 (“4Q2014”) while its operating revenue at RM119.8 million was the same as compared to 4Q2014.  The ADV for securities market’s on-market trades was up by 9 percent from RM1.9 billion in 4Q2014 while ADC traded for the derivatives market increased by 11 percent from 54,537 contracts in 4Q2014. On the Islamic market front, the ADV of BSAS increased by 20 percent from RM9.87 billion in 4Q2014.

Dato’ Tajuddin said, “Moving forward we expect 2015 to continue to be challenging due to uncertainties in major economies and crude oil prices.  The prospects for Malaysia’s economy however will remain positive with 4.5% to 5.5% expected growth in GDP supported by strong economic fundamentals.  On our part, we will intensify our engagement and promotional efforts to attract more local retail and institutional participation.  We will continue our own series of foreign institutional roadshows in the second quarter and roll out more products and services in the coming months.”

The financial results for the quarter ended 31 March 2015 is available on Bursa Malaysia’s website (www.bursamalaysia.com)