Interdealer broker TP ICAP has released results for the six months ended 30 June 2020 today, indicating a 7% rise in Revenues from 1H-2019, and a slight 2% increase in profits.

The company said that it increased its underlying profits in the period, despite incurring a £10 million charge due to an increase in unused annual leave as at 30 June, as employees chose not to use their annual leave due to the lockdown enforced in most jurisdictions where the company operates. This charge will reverse in H2 2020 in line with Group policy on holiday carry-forward.

With regards to its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, TP ICAP stated that the Group fundamentally re-engineered its operations during lockdown to maintain continuous global client service and liquidity across all asset classes and desks. Tactical deployment of new digital solutions and new workflows enabled the vast majority of the company’s employees to work from home effectively. Re-engineering the business presented significant technological, management and regulatory challenges, coming as it did during a period of extremely high volatility and a sharp increase in volumes.  The company said it demonstrated readiness and resilience to continue to serve clients and provide essential liquidity in the markets.

TP ICAP noted that it has not furloughed or reduced its permanent workforce as a consequence of COVID-19, nor has it requested any government aid in any of its global locations.

Financial highlights for TP ICAP:

TP ICAP stated that its FX business was somewhat slow in 1H-2020, down 2%. In Foreign Exchange, the company launched the FXO hub in March. FXO hub is a multi-brand, hybrid trading platform for FX Options products, covering both G10 and emerging markets currency pairs. The platform supports collation of “Indication of Interest” bids and offers, via an electronic order book, “Request for Quote”, plus Auxiliary matching order entry methods. It provides clients with a much better user experience and improved connectivity. TP ICAP said that FXO had an “excellent response” so far, and it is seeing a good number of top tier banks already streaming liquidity.

Nicolas Breteau, CEO of TP ICAP plc, said of the results and 1H-2020 overall:

“Against the COVID-19 backdrop, our primary focus has been to protect the wellbeing of our staff and ensure continuity of service excellence for our clients. We achieved this by deploying new technology and workflows that enabled the majority of our staff to work from home while maintaining seamless, global client coverage.

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, we have grown revenues and underlying profitability whilst advancing our strategic priorities of aggregating liquidity across our brands, increasing electronification and diversifying our revenue streams. We paid our full year dividend and have declared an interim dividend. Our performance is a testament to our operational strength, scale and diversified business portfolio, as well as the hard work and dedication of our teams.

We will update the market on our strategic priorities and medium-term growth plan at our Investor Update on 8 October 2020.”

TP ICAP’s full release on 1H-2020 results can be seen here.