Industry & Business

The Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) plc has recorded another strong financial year with results published this week showing a 21% rise in profit after tax to €8m (2015: €6.6m). Revenues grew by 6% to €29.2m and total assets rose by 22% to €64.2m. With over 35,000 securities quoted on its markets from issuers located in 85 countries around the world, around 70% of ISE revenues come from international business lines.

ISE Chief Executive Deirdre Somers said: “2016 was a standout year for the ISE as we continued to build our domestic and international business lines. As a significant exporter of financial services into the EU and beyond, we are well-positioned to embrace the challenges and opportunities of Brexit.

“The outlook for 2017 is very positive. We are attracting significant debt listings making us by far the fastest growing bond market in the world. The ISE hosted the largest IPO in Europe with the flotation of AIB and statistics show that trading in AIB is very much concentrated in Dublin. Greencoat Renewables and Cairn Homes have also joined the market and there is a good pipeline of future potential IPOs coming through in 2017-2018.”

An analysis of revenues shows the ISE’s primary markets business, which includes international debt, fund and equity listings, recorded an increase in revenues of 5% to €20.1m (2015: €19.2m). According to statistics released by the World Federation of Exchanges for the end of 2016 the ISE was ranked as the #1 centre in the world for listing funds and was the second most popular centre for global bond listings across 68 exchanges.

Debt listing and related income increased to €15.6m in 2016 (2015: €14.9m). This rise in income reflects the growth in debt securities listings by 7% to over 29,000 securities at the end of 2016, their fourth year of successive growth. Multinationals, sovereigns and financial institutions from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia were among the 6,777 new debt listings attracted to the ISE’s two debt markets during the year. Notable listings were the first ever sovereign bond issuance by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the largest ever Canadian issuances from CPPIB Capital Inc, the capital markets financing subsidiary of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Vodafone and Ferrari. Other listings included Entertainment One, Rabobank, Liberty Mutual, Clisa, Whirlpool and Glanbia.

The ISE attracted 1,041 new fund and exchange traded funds (ETF) listings in 2016. New listings came from leading international fund managers such as Pimco and Polaris.  In addition, activity in exchange traded funds (ETFs) continued to be strong with new launches from issuers such as Vanguard, Wisdomtree, First Trust, UBS and Deutsche Bank.

Traded markets and related revenues rose by 8% to €9.1m (2015: €8.3m). This revenue stream represents income from equity and Government bond transaction charges, market data sales as well as revenue streams such as Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) issuance. The financial results reflect the 17.4% increase in the number of equity trades to a record 6.6m (2015: 5.6m), the first time trading has reached over 6m trades and the fifth consecutive year of growth in trade numbers. They also reflect the ISE’s position as the #1 venue for trading and liquidity in Irish shares.

Operating costs which mainly consisted of staff and infrastructure costs were reduced during the year to €20m (2015: €20.2m).

Overall total assets at the end of 2016 stood at €64.2m (2015: €52.8m), following the acquisition of the shareholding in Euroclear plc that was previously owned by the ISE’s former trading entity (Irish Stock Exchange Limited, now ISE OldCo Limited).