Numis chief sees big lack of confidence

Stockbroker Numis sees no respite from market turbulence that has hammered brokerages, while hailing a near doubling in fees from its mergers and acquisitions business that helped it to lift annual profits.
By The Newsroom
Published 8th Dec 2011, 09:44 BST

“I’ve never seen such a lack of confidence and so much uncertainty,” chief executive Oliver Hemsley said yesterday. “I don’t see any abatement or easing in market conditions while there’s so much uncertainty.”

Turbulent financial markets, rocked by the eurozone sovereign debt crisis, have hit stockbrokers hard, as their clients opt for perceived safe havens, including some commodities or curren-cies.

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While the number of mergers and acquisitions was healthy in the first half of 2011, there was a 34 per cent drop in European M&A deals in the third quarter from the previous three months, according to Thomson Reuters Deals Intelligence.

Major firms including ICAP and Tullett Prebon said earlier this year they were seeing less trading and flat or declining revenues.

Despite the difficult conditions, however, Numis saw fees from mergers and acquisitions jump 94 per cent to £9.3m in the year ended September, helped by strong deal activity earlier this year.

Numis was one of the brokers for the November purchase of British engineering group Hamworthy by Wartsila for £383m. Numis also acted as a co-lead manager for the October 2010 IPO of online betting exchange Betfair.

Profit before tax and one-off items climbed 13 per cent to £8.9m on a 4 per cent increase in revenue to £54.2m.