Deutsche Börse AG’s CFO Mathias Hlubek commented: “We are delighted with our results for the second quarter. In our core business, we continued the successes of previous years and further extended our healthy market position. The increasingly positive business development at Clearstream again reflects the benefits of our diversification.” Clearstream’s securities custody services and cash market trading have both profited from the recovery on the equity markets, added Hlubek. “On the basis of our earnings for the first half of the year, we are confident that we will achieve our EBIT target of at least €450 million.”
The company’s segment reporting shows that Clearstream again recorded the highest sales revenue in the second quarter - up 8 percent to €144.3 million (Q2/2003: € 134.2 million). In its largest business area, custody, volumes increased by 7 percent year-on-year to €7,700 billion. Segment EBIT rose by 9 percent to €33.4 million (Q2/2003: €30.7 million) on the back of reduced costs. Among other things, the fall in costs is due to substantial cost synergies from the integration of Clearstream with Deutsche Börse Group.
The Eurex segment generated sales revenue of €101.7 million - just under last year’s record figure (Q2/2003: €103.9 million). At €42.1 million, EBIT in the derivatives market was also down year-on-year (Q2/2003: €59.7 million). Segment costs increased in line with forecasts due to the development and operation of the Eurex US trading platform. 553 million contracts were traded on Eurex in the first six months, compared with 524 million in the prior-year period.
The Xetra segment grew by 4 percent and recorded sales revenue of €52.3 million, as against €50.4 million in Q2 2003. Its EBIT almost tripled to €18.1 million (Q2/2003: €6.9 million) on the back of lower costs. The sharp increase in this segment’s margin is due to the launch of the central counterparty for the cash market in April last year, which led to higher costs in the prior-year period. According to order book statistics, turnover of German and international equities increased by 27 percent in the first six months from €420.5 billion (January - June 2003) to € 533.6 billion (January - June 2004).
The Information Technology segment generated external sales revenue of €30.7 million in the second quarter, compared with €33 million in the prior-year period. Following a reduction in costs for development and IT services and an increase in internally generated sales revenue to €45.1 million (Q2/2003: €40.5 million), EBIT improved by 54 percent to €27.6 million (Q2/2003: €17.9 million).
Information Technology acquired new business as a result of the agreements entered into with Deutsche WertpapierService Bank (dwpbank) and the EEX energy exchange at the end of last year. Since December 2003, Information Technology has operated all of dwpbank’s mainframe applications and its server system from Deutsche Börse Group’s datacentre. The Group’s systems also process all of EEX’s energy trading activities.
At €30.0 million, Information Services generated almost the same level of sales revenue as in the previous year (Q2/2003: €30.4 million). Costs were reduced by 5 percent and EBIT fell slightly to €11.1 million (Q2/2003: €12.6 million).
