LONDON (Alliance News) - Jarvis Securities PLC on Thursday struck a cautious tone amid a tough start to 2016 for financial markets and the continued low interest rate environment.
The stock broker and outsourced service provider for financial administration said pretax profit rose in 2015, to GBP3.4 million from GBP3.2 million the prior year, as revenue ticked up to GBP7.6 million to GBP7.3 million. The company said it paid out a special dividend of 10 pence during the year, as cash reserves in the business were continuing to build up, as well as buying back shares to be held in treasury.
"In the first half of the year market sentiment was positive with the FTSE 100 share index briefly breaking through the 7,000 point barrier in April and May. This in turn led to healthy trade volumes across the market," Chairman Andrew Grant said.
"During the second half of the year concerns about the Chinese economy and the impact of the fall in oil prices have dominated investors' thoughts. Prices have fallen across all market sectors and trade volumes declined," Grant added.
The chairman said the company has "several enquiries in the pipeline" for its outsourcing service, some of which would immediately add "significantly" to the company's trade volumes and cash balance under administration.
Shares in Jarvis were up 4.5% at 338.40 pence on Thursday morning.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Jarvis Securities (JIM)