Cenkos Securities shares fall as faces "challenging" market conditions

(Alliance News) - Cenkos Securities PLC shares slumped on Thursday after the company reported a first-half loss.

Shares were trading 11% lower at 54.00 pence each in London Thursday mid-morning.

The London-based stockbroker swung to a pretax loss of GBP483,000 in the first half of 2022 from profit of GBP1.7 million a year before.

Revenue fell 30% to GBP12.7 million from GBP18.2 million in the same period last year.

An interim dividend of 1.0p per share has been proposed for 2022, cut from 1.25p per share in 2021.

The company said that "market conditions remain challenging and are likely to be so for the foreseeable future."

Market activity slowed "dramatically" during the first half of the year. This resulted in the amounts being raised on London's AIM and Main Market in the first half of 2022 being at their "lowest level in over a decade," the company said.

Despite the fall in market activity, the company noted that it accounted for "23% of all monies raised on AIM and represented 49% of all new money raised from AIM IPOs."

Chief Executive Officer Julian Morse commented: "We see that stability and operational resilience will be critical qualities over the near term. We continue to operate with a very strong balance sheet, holding additional capital above regulatory minimums, and our variable remuneration structure allows us to maintain a disciplined approach to staff costs."

By Chris Dorrell; chrisdorrell@alliancenews.com

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