ROUNDUP: Despite the marketing campaign, Flatexdegiro earns significantly more

FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) – Despite an expensive marketing campaign, the online broker flatexDEGIRO earned significantly more in the first quarter. The operating result jumped by more than three quarters. In addition, the SDAX company was able to acquire significantly more new customers than in the previous quarter. The shares were recently listed on the Tradegate trading platform around three percent above the Xetra closing price.

After the record year 2021, Frankfurt grew in double digits in the first quarter. At 118 million euros, sales were 14 percent above the fourth quarter of the previous year, as the company announced on Tuesday after the stock market closed. “We managed to do this in an environment in which comparable companies are reporting significant declines in customer growth and the trading activity of private investors remains at a comparatively low level due to fears of interest rates, inflation and war,” said CEO Frank Niehage according to the announcement. Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected lower sales.

Despite increasing marketing expenses, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and special effects (adjusted Ebitda) rose by a good three quarters to EUR 54.5 million compared to the previous quarter. In addition, the number of customer accounts has grown by seven percent to a good 2.2 million since the turn of the year. The number of transactions climbed by 10.6 percent to almost 22 million, with the increase being due in particular to customer growth.

Flatexdegiro had already expected that its customers would trade less on average than last year. Overall, management is only aiming for an increase in transactions from 91 million to 95 to 115 million for the year. The number of customer accounts, on the other hand, is expected to increase by 30 to 40 percent to 2.7 to 2.9 million, as the company announced at the beginning of January. Flatexdegiro confirmed this outlook on Tuesday.

Flatexdegiro is active in 18 European countries, the most important markets being Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The management expects particularly strong growth in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Ireland and Great Britain. Flatex was founded in 1999 by the entrepreneur and publisher Bernd Frtsch (“The Shareholder”). In 2020, the Frankfurt-based company took over its Dutch competitor Degiro and renamed it Flatexdegiro.

On Wednesday, the board wants to answer questions from the press and analysts./jcf/edh/he