IG Group Holdings plc ("IG" or the "Group") today issues the following Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 December 2011 to 12 March 2012. Unless otherwise stated, trends and figures highlighted below refer to the three months ended 29 February 2012 and the corresponding period last year. The commentary below excludes the Sport business which was discontinued as of June 2011.
Revenue in the third quarter was approximately £75m, an increase of 1.5% from the £74m in the corresponding period last year. This reflects growth in active client numbers of 4.6% offset by a decline of 3.0% in revenue per client.
After a period of elevated and somewhat exceptional volatility during the first half of the financial year, particularly in August, volatility during the third quarter reduced significantly across all asset classes. As is normally the case, this adversely affected client activity levels and the slow down for the holiday period during December and January both started earlier and ended later than in previous years. Despite this, revenue in December was slightly higher than in the previous year while January was down on what was a strong comparable. As clients became more accustomed to the lower volatility environment, their activity levels increased and revenue in February 2012 was 10% higher than in February 2011.
