Business

Friday February 10, 2012

Bursa expects average daily trading value to hit RM1.6bil this year

By DANIEL KHOO
danielkhoo@thestar.com.my


KUALA LUMPUR: Bursa Malaysia Bhd, which recorded a 29% growth in net profit to RM146.2mil for its financial year ended Dec 31 (FY11), says it hopes to repeat this stellar performance this year should the environment for the stock market continue to be conducive for investing.

“We hope our performance in 2012 will mirror that or be better than 2011. Of course we will try to do better than that,” Bursa CEO Datuk Tajuddin Atan told a financial briefing yesterday.

Bursa, which earns money through payments made to it on every trade that goes through the stock exchange, said it expected average daily trading value for securities to hit its forecast of RM1.6bil should the environment remain conducive.

Tajuddin: ‘We hope our performance in 2012 will mirror that or be better than 2011.’

“This of course is dependent on the bigger economic picture of the country and how markets around the world behave. Our forecast is based on historical trends,” he explained.

The stock exchange operator had reported its annual net profits grew to RM146.2mil in FY11 from RM113mil in FY10 on the back of revenues also increasing to RM420.14mil from RM361.05mil.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, Bursa said its fourth-quarter profit had declined to RM31.34mil from RM38.62mil in the third quarter. Fourth-quarter revenues also slipped to RM95.67mil from RM107.31mil in the preceding quarter.

It also proposed a final dividend 13 sen per share for FY11. Bursa said in a statement that should the dividend be approved by its shareholders, it would mean the company would have paid out 95% of its net profits as dividends, which is higher than the 75% declared last year.

Bursa had earlier last year given a guidance to its investors that it expected to achieve a 20% net profit growth per year over the next three years. This means that the guidance will be inclusive for FY12 and FY13 as well.

“I am proud to say that all of our last year's targets have been met,” Tajuddin said.

The company attributed the better financial performance to the improvement in its securities and derivatives market's trading volume as a result of increased participation by both foreign and local investors. Bursa had also recorded 28 new listings last year, which was a slight decline from 29 in 2010.

Meanwhile, Tajuddin said Bursa was open to any potential strategic collaborations with any regional bourses and the company would announce further developments should these collaborations eventually took place.

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