Mathias Hlubek, Chief Financial Officer of Deutsche Börse said he was extremely pleased with the Company’s business development in the first half of the year. Positive trends in capital markets helped increase demand for Deutsche Börse Group’s products and services in the first six months. “Our 9 percent year-on-year sales revenue growth in the first half of 2005 is by far the Group’s strongest organic growth since the Company’s IPO in 2001. On the basis of our excellent six-month figures, we are lifting our guidance for the current financial year: we are confident that we will exceed our EBITA target for 2005 of around €600 million by at least 5 percent,” said Hlubek. The CFO reiterated the Company’s medium-term growth targets of approximately 5 percent for sales revenue and 10 percent for the operating result (EBITA), based on its 2005 EBITA target of €600 million.
The Company’s segment reporting for the second quarter shows that Clearstream again recorded the highest sales revenue. Revenues (sales revenue and net interest income from banking business) increased by 11 percent to €182.0 million in Q2/2005 (Q2/2004: €164.2 million). Revenue growth was driven mainly by growth in the international custody business and an increase in settlement transactions. The custody volume rose by 8 percent year-on-year to €8.3 trillion; custody business from international securities recorded disproportionately high growth of 18 percent. Settlement instructions were up by 6 percent to 12.7 million (Q2/2004: 12.0 million). The segment’s EBITA grew by 23 percent to €59.9 million (Q2/2004: €48.7 million), while costs remained stable.
The Eurex segment accounted for sales revenue of €126.8 million in the second quarter – up by 25 percent year-on-year (Q2/2004: €101.7 million). In terms of EBITA, Eurex generated disproportionately high growth of 61 percent to €67.0 million (Q2/2004: €41.7 million). The reason for this growth was the increased trading volume in the second quarter and the revised profit distribution between SWX Swiss Exchange and Deutsche Börse. Since 1 January this year, Deutsche Börse has received 85 percent of the profits from the Eurex segment, compared with 80 percent until the end of 2004.
In the Xetra segment, sales revenue increased to €58.3 million (Q2/2004: €52.3 million) in the second quarter due to greater trading activity on the Xetra pan-European trading platform. With costs falling slightly, EBITA rose by 45 percent to €26.3 million.
The Information Technology segment grew by 11 percent in Q2, generating external sales revenue of €34.2 million (Q2/2004: €30.7 million). EBITA amounted to €23.5 million (Q2/2004: €29.4 million).
Sales revenue in the Market Data & Analytics segment increased by 9 percent to €32.6 million (Q2/2004: €30.0 million). The segment generated EBITA of €10.6 million compared with €11.3 million in Q2/2004. Sales revenue in the segment was driven by increased demand for real-time trading data.
