LONDON (Alliance News) - Arden Partners PLC, an institutional stockbroker, Wednesday cut its final dividend as it reported a drop in pretax profit in its last financial year, though a stronger performance in the second half of the year helped to expel the memory of a first-half pretax loss of GBP474,000.
In a statement, Arden said it made a GBP75,000 pretax profit in the year ended October 31, 2014, significantly lower than the GBP1.3 million pretax profit reported in the prior year. Revenue fell to GBP8.0 million from GBP10.1 million, while administrative expenses were cut to GBP7.9 million from GBP8.8 million.
Arden cut its final dividend to 0.75 pence from 1.75 pence. That sum also represents Arden's total dividend for the year, a drop from 3.0 pence per share in the prior year.
Chief Executive James Reed-Daunter said the performance should be seen in light of structural change in the industry, in particular to commission income driven by new top down guidelines and compliance regulations.
"We have invested into those areas of the business at the core of our strategy and believe we have a strong platform to deliver growing and sustainable revenues within the corporate finance division of the business," Reed-Daunter said in a statement.
"Whilst the board expects no significant recovery in commission revenues we do expect a better performance from market making and trading and this remains a cornerstone of our service offering to both institutional and corporate clients," the CEO added.
Arden Partners shares were untraded at the time of writing on Wednesday. The stock closed at 45.50 pence on Tuesday.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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