Admirals triples H1 revenue but onboarded less clients
FX brokerage firm Admirals (formerly Admiral Markets) has reported its interim financial results for the six months ending June 2022, which saw strong performance across key components of its business.
Compared to a period of weak growth in 2021, Admirals had seen noticeable gains in its financial figures in 2022. More specifically, Admirals disclosed a net operating revenue of €43 million compared to just €35.7 million for the entire 2021. The figure is also up by nearly 150 percent year-over-year from €17.3 million in 2021.
Also, Admiral Markets saw its operating expenses tick down in the 2022, after seeing a figure of €10 million – this was down 9 percent year-over-year from €10.9 million in 2021. Marketing expenses, which accounted for 35 percent of total operating costs in the first half, decreased 25 percent year-on-year and reached €3.5 million by the end of June 2022.
Meanwhile, the bottom line figure shows that Admirals’ EBITDA and net profit were €24.3 million and €23.3 million, respectively. In 2021, the company barely broke even with a net profit at €0.1 million in the 12 months through December 2021.
“The Russian/Ukraine war changed “everything”. It brought big market movements near to any financial assets, and Group client segment (usually active traders which trade in both directions of the markets) traded a lot. In general, for the CFD business, volatility is a benefit, as the interest for the financial markets went up. Due to the high volatility in financial markets, we witnessed a significant improvement in the Group’s results,” said Sergei Bogatenkov, CEO of Admirals.
Meanwhile, the value of trades increased 9 percent to €467 billion comparing to €429 billion in H1 2021, and was also up from €439 billion in 2020. However, the number of trades went down 2 percent to 28.7 million comparing to 29.2 million in the six months through June 2021.
Admiral Markets said 2022 has been “an excellent kick-off” for the results they expect to achieve in the next few years. This, however, wasn’t reflected in onboarding more clients. Specifically, the company reported the number of new clients at 33,493, down 17 percent from 40,235 in 2021. Additionally, the number of active decreased 15 percent to 41,227 accounts compared to 48,638 in same period of the previous year.
Admirals has made a significant strategic expansion in Canada and South- Africa while maintaining business costs at levels comparable with previous years.
Admirals SA (PTY) Ltd, an operating subsidiary of Admirals, has received regulatory approval to offer CFDs trading to investors in South Africa. The new entity is headquartered in Cape Town. Acting as an execution dealer, Admirals SA (PTY) Ltd will provide both CFDs and stock trading, but it plans to launch additional products in the future under its this South-African license. However, the broker is not allowed to provide investment advice or recommendations regarding CFDs transactions.
Admirals is also licensed by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). The regulatory approvals allow the brokerage firm to offer a set of financial services and also approved to provide cross-border services across the EU / EEA under European passport rights.
