RE: Interesting21 Apr 2021 13:25
Despite major headwinds of Covid-19 and Brexit, Aquis has delivered its maiden full year profits. FY2020 pre-tax profit of £0.5m was £0.3m better than our expectations driven by revenue of £11.5m (up 67% YoY). Exchange subscription revenues grew by 46% YoY to £7.7m, helped by market share gains and strong trading volumes in equities with technology licencing and market data performance being particularly strong. The acquisition of AQSE has already contributed £1.2m to revenues through issuer fees and synergies across the other businesses. Having already made in-roads in secondary market trading, Aquis also has the hallmarks of disrupting the primary marketplace via AQSE. Given the strong momentum and proof of delivery, we maintain our BUY rating and increase our target price to 655p (from 606p) implying 15% upside.