Numis describes 'resilient' first-half performance

Investment banking group Numis said in a trading update on Monday that despite weaker overall investment banking markets, it delivered a resilient first-half performance, with revenue expected to be up 14% at around £64m.

The AIM-traded firm said the outlook for mergers and acquisitions remained positive, with a record first half for advisory.

However, the continued scarcity of UK ECM transactions across the market resulted in lower investment banking revenues in the six months ended 31 March.

Equities revenues, which had a good start to the year, would however be lower than the comparative period, due to both institutional income and trading businesses experiencing a weaker end to the half year.

Numis said its balance sheet remained “strong”, with both liquidity and capital positions enabling the capacity to deliver shareholder returns and continued investment in strategy to deliver growth through the market cycle.

“The outlook for our advisory business remains positive with a good pipeline of both buy-side and sell-side mandates, reflecting both continued activity in the UK mid-market and the strength of our corporate relationships,” the board said of Numis’ outlook.

“Our strong corporate broking franchise ensures we are well positioned to benefit from a recovery in capital markets volumes, however, we do not envisage a meaningful change in market conditions in the short term.

“As a consequence, we believe that it is unlikely that the initial public offering market will see any meaningful pick-up during the remainder of our financial year to 30 September.”

At 1101 BST, shares in Numis Corporation were down 0.9% at 213.32p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.