Resilient London Stock Exchange sees revenue rise

"Reflecting the breadth of the group's activities, performance has been resilient in what have been mixed market conditions," Chief executive Xavier Rolet said.

He said the LSE was encouraged by the recent improvement in share of trading in UK cash equities and the growth in trading on Turquoise, a rival platform the LSE acquired last year. The company's shares were up 2.1 per cent to 617 pence.

"Overall results were not bad," one trader said. "Revenues from London operations equate to only a small percentage of overall trades, hence overseas operations are seen as the main driver for the firm."

Appointed last year, Rolet is trying to cut costs and diversify business to combat fierce competition from low-cost electronic trading platforms known as multilateral trading facilities (MTFs), such as Chi-X and BATS, that have grown rapidly since deregulation of European share trading in 2007.

The LSE's average share of total cash equities on its UK platform was 60 per cent in April, rising to 62.4 per cent in June, which marked the first quarter of market share gains since European stock markets were opened up to competition.

The market share of equity trading platform Turquoise averaged 5.4 per cent in June, up from 4.3 per cent in April, making it the largest European dark pool MTF, the LSE said.

The LSE, which in May reported a 19 per cent drop in full-year earnings per share, said it would continue to focus on improving the efficiency of its business and its competitive position. It expects market conditions to stay mixed.

First-quarter revenues stood at 158.2m, up one per cent on the first quarter of last year and up three per cent on the fourth quarter.

In capital markets, growth in fixed-income trading was offset by declines in cash equities and derivatives.

The primary markets business saw growth overall as increases in annual fee revenue offset slightly lower admission fees.

The LSE's technology services business saw a near-doubling of revenues in the quarter to 12.7m.

This growth reflected a 5m contribution from technology services firm MillenniumIT, which the LSE acquired in October. The MillenniumIT trading platform is scheduled to come onstream for Turquoise in early October and for the UK trading platform in November.