Michael Spencer, Group Chief Executive Officer, said: "We are living through extraordinary times in financial markets. Global imbalances and slowing economic activity are being played out together with the Eurozone crisis. The climate of uncertainty is inevitably creating risk aversion in volatile markets around the world.
"Against this backdrop ICAP performed well in the first half as a result of the diversity of our businesses and ability to provide customer solutions. High volumes this summer, along with continued revenue and profit growth in our higher margin electronic broking and post trade businesses, offset lower volumes in some of our voice markets. We generated strong cash flow and our group operating margin was 22%.
"We maintained our focus on innovation, launching new products and upgrades to existing platforms. We are pleased to have formed a partnership with some of the world's largest swaps dealers who are co-investing in iSwap, our electronic platform for interest rate swaps, a move which will greatly enhance the growth of the platform as swaps' trading becomes increasingly electronic. This new iSwap platform yesterday received regulatory approval from the FSA to operate as an MTF. In Brazil we have grown revenues and market share and are cutting costs to put the business on the path to profitability.
"As the banks approach the end of their financial year they are reducing their appetite for risk. This has resulted in activity in our voice business in October and November to date being disappointing, but not surprising. We expect to see a return to more normal activity at the start of the next calendar year.
"Looking forward, our focus remains on investing in new products, platforms and markets to drive growth and executing on our strategy to ensure that we meet the needs of our customers around the world. The strength of our diversified business model positions us strongly for long-term sustainable growth and we continue to believe that we are well placed to benefit from the forthcoming changes in the regulatory environment."
The Interim dividend was increased 14% to 6p per share.
