Exchanges Post Mainly Positive Data Revenues

The London Stock Exchange, saw a 45 percent increase in revenue from its Information Services business to £261 million ($407.6 million) for the first half of 2015, largely due to the good performance of FTSE, the acquisition of Russell Indexes, and growth from its UnaVista business, which went someway to offset a 6 percent decline in revenue from real-time data from £44.6 million ($69.7 million) to £42 million ($65.6 million) year-on-year. The exchange says this reflects fewer professional users of real-time data from the LSE and its Borsa Italiana subsidiary. Overall, LSE reported profit of £239.4 million ($340 million) for H1, up 16 percent from £205.7 million ($292 million) year-on-year.

Deutsche Börse saw net revenue for the second quarter from its Market Data + Services unit rise from €95.4 million ($105.6 million) to €99 million ($109.6 million) year-on-year, with notable growth in its index business, where its Stoxx subsidiary grew 15 percent with net revenue of €23.9 million ($26.5 million), up from €20.7 million ($22.9 million) in Q2 2014. The trend of investors moving towards passively managed financial products, such as exchange-traded funds, led to an increase in assets under management in these products and thus to higher licensing revenues. Overall, the exchange's net revenue rose by 19 percent year-on-year from €491.2 million ($536.8 million) to €583.1 million ($637.2 million).

Spanish exchange Bolsas y Mercados Españoles reported net profit of €44.5 million ($48.9 million) for Q2, 7.1 percent higher than the same quarter last year, with information services increasing by 15.5 percent year-on-year to €9.3 million ($10.2 million). BME officials say the growth is due to increases in primary source end-users, direct connections, and total customers. The total number of subscribers connecting to BME data rose 3.1 percent for the quarter, and 7.3 percent over the six-month period from January to June, while the number of customers connecting directly to BME's information servers rose 23.5 percent, and subscriptions to end-of-day data products rose almost 5 percent over the prior quarter, and 14 percent over Q2 last year.

Revenue from Euronext's market data and indexes business was €24.5 million ($26.9 million), up 3.8 percent from €23.5 million ($25.8 million) last year, with the exchange benefitting from price increases for Level 2 data that took effect on Jan. 1 2015, as well as index license revenue for products linked to blue-chip indexes, and compliance audits. Overall net profit for the exchange for Q2/15 was €28.7 million ($31.4 million), stable with the same period last year.

In Canada, TMX Group reported a drop in overall revenues from C$182.3 million ($138.7 million) last year to C$178.8 million ($136.1 million) for Q2, but made a slight increase in profits for information services, reporting revenue of C$48.1 million ($36.6 million) for Q2, up from C$47.7 million ($36.3 million) year-on-year, with last year's acquisition of the microwave network business of Strike Technologies and the positive impact from a stronger US dollar offsetting a 3 percent decrease in the average number of professional market data subscriptions for Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange products.

CME Group reported market data revenue of $102.8 million, up 15 percent from $89.6 million for the same quarter last year, driven primarily by a higher proportion of total volume coming from commodities products, which have higher average fees. Overall, the exchange reported net income of $265 million, up from $263.8 million for the same period last year.

Nasdaq OMX recorded mixed overall results, reporting positive Q2 net profits that rose to $133 million from $101 million in Q1, though year-on-year revenues fell from $523 million to $518 million, which the exchange attributes to a $29 million negative impact from foreign exchange rates. Revenue from data products, which make up 19 percent of the exchange's total revenue, fell by $2 million year-on-year to $99 million. Higher revenue from proprietary and shared tape revenue plans, as well as the inclusion of revenue associated with the Dorsey Wright acquisition, was not enough to offset lower audit collections and the impact of changes in foreign exchange rates