WorldSpreads Group plc - Preliminary Results for the Year Ended 31 March 2011

LONDON, July 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

WorldSpreads Group plc ("WorldSpreads", the "Company" or the "Group") today announces its full year results for the twelve months ended 31 March 2011.

Highlights

• Trading revenue from continuing operations, excluding IT revenue of €0.40m (£0.35m): up 25% to €16.07m (£14.12m) (2010: €12.89m, £11.33m)
• Marketing spend up 455% to €3.22m (£2.83m) (2010: €0.58m, £0.51m)
• Operating loss from continuing operations before stock option compensation: €0.64m (£0.56m) (2010: Operating profit before stock compensation of €3.00m, £2.64m)
• Basic (loss)/earnings per share from continuing operations of (1.7c) (2010: 5.7c)
• Strong balance sheet with net assets of €21.61m (£18.99m) (2010: €22.43m, £19.71m) and Cash (excluding monies held on behalf of clients) of €12m (£10.54m) (2010: €13.0m, £11.42m)
• Average trades per day from continuing operations: up 56% to 9,616 (2010: 6,148)
• 4,508 (2010: 4,124) new clients registered in year to 31 March 2011

Commenting on the results, CEO Conor Foley stated:

The results we are presenting today demonstrate the continuing strong performance in our core business areas, as demonstrated by the strong growth in all of our key performance indicators.

As we highlighted throughout the year, the period under review has been characterised by significant investment in systems, new key management and international expansion. This, combined with an aggressive advertising and brand building campaign in the UK market, is, in the Board's view, achieving the Group's target objectives. We are reinforcing our position in the competitive UK retail market for financial spread betting; our international operations have been expanded and the growth in the volume of business that this strategy was targeting is now emerging. The development of advanced risk management controls in relation to trading, exposure management and, at a macro level, in respect of the performance required of our business units, has played a major role in improving the quality of our income streams and in the firm's ability to react rapidly to changing environments in both the domestic and international markets.

Our partnership model continues to grow strongly and is greatly aided in its business development and delivery by our IT team in Kuala Lumpur. New partners have been added to the platform; under-performing partners have been terminated and there is a very strong pipeline of new cooperation opportunities in the UK, Europe and the Far East.  Enhancements are continually being made to our proprietary IT platform, XEQT, and new products are in the planning stages for delivery to our clients during this calendar year.  As consistently stated over the last 12 months, we have operated over this period at an almost break-even level, reflecting the investment in resources, marketing and overseas start-ups.  However, the underlying activity levels and 'run rates' were very encouraging: Trading profits, excluding IT revenues, were up 25% on the prior year; over 4,500 new clients opened accounts in the year; average daily trade numbers were up 56% on the previous year; and expansion in our existing and carefully selected, new overseas markets continued.

In summary, our rebuilding and repositioning work is close to completion.  It is our firm view that we have created the ideal foundation for sustainable, controlled and high quality growth in the coming years.

PDF of the WorldSpreads Preliminary Results for the Year ended 31 March 2011