OCT.L Regulatory News (OCT)

7.00am 20 October 2017

Octagonal plc

("Octagonal" or the "Company")

Trading Update

The Company is pleased to provide the following trading update based on the unaudited interim figures for the six months ended 30 September 2017 for its wholly owned subsidiary, Global Investment Strategy UK Limited ("GIS") and the Board is extremely pleased with the record revenues and profits achieved. 

GIS reports record revenues of £3.35 million and profits of £1.6 million for the 6 months to 30 September 2017 compared with £2.85 million and £1.14 million, respectively, for the six months to 30 September 2016. This represents an increase of over 17.5% in revenue and 40% in net profit compared with the same period in 2016. The business continued to show increases in net margins from 40% to 47.5% over the comparable period.

Interim period highlights:

· Cost efficiencies and margin improvement continues - Significant work continues being undertaken to improve processing efficiencies, client reporting and reducing frictional costs; as a result net margins have improved from 40% to 47.5% over the comparable period.

· Additional services to clients - Asset Management and enhanced FX, Futures and Options trading services made a positive contribution in the period. This continues the Company's strategy of organically growing, offering a broader range of services to clients where it sees long term value.

· Corporate finance activities made a positive contribution in the period for the first time.

In addition to the above, the Company is pleased to announce that, further to the recent approval from Shareholders at the AGM, it has filed documents with the Court to reorganise its share capital with a view to making a dividend distribution in the future. The Company will provide a further update on this in due course.

John Gunn, CEO and Chairman, reports:

"This is a good set of results for the half year as the second quarter is usually impacted by reduced trading volumes over the summer period.

We also managed to improve revenues and profits in spite of the negative impact of a slightly strengthened pound as our revenues are by majority USD and to a lesser extent Euro and GBP denominated.

This was the first time we have seen our corporate finance activities beginning to make a positive contribution to revenues and profits. We will naturally continue to develop these opportunities, although there is no certainty of maintaining these levels of revenue, which were below 10% of total revenues for the period.

Whilst our business remains subject to fluctuations in global markets, we continue to be confident in the outlook for the remainder of the year.

Our application for our Hong Kong license continues and we'll update shareholders when there are meaningful developments.

We also shortly expect to soft launch the SynerGIS Bond offering inviting depositors to pre register. Again we will make a separate statement at the time.

The consolidated accounts for Octagonal PLC to 30 September 2017 are required to be released by 31 December 2017 although the Board hope to be in a position to do so well in advance of this deadline."

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014

For further information please visitwww.octagonalplc.com or contact: