Strate, the 50% JSE-owned electronic settlement and custodian company, is starting to move into the black, the company said on Thursday, thanks to a revised fee structure.
Because the number of trades a day on the JSE Securities Exchange is the main driver of Strate’s revenue, lacklustre activity on the JSE, especially towards the end of the year, accordingly saw Strate’s 2002 processing volumes falling marginally short of its budgeted assumptions.
The group had expected an average of 15 000 trades per day for the second half of the year through December 2002, but actual trading fell short of this.
”We were actually ahead of our estimates until the last quarter of the year, but the number of trades a day for the three months to December was, on average, only 13 554,” explained Monica Singer, CEO of Strate Ltd.
”This was primarily responsible for the below budget revenue outcome for certain line items that are dependent on the number of trades.”
Strate’s net loss was some R12-million lower than budgeted owing to its
commitment to reducing costs and generating additional income from other areas
of its business, among them data sales and IT services, Singer said, while not
revealing the group’s actual loss for the year.
In June 2002, Strate changed its fee structure-mainly through increasing fees –because the underlying assumptions on which its charges were originally determined had to be reconsidered, the group said, as they suffered shortcomings in the electronic settlement environment.
Since the new revenue model was implemented, Strate had shown a monthly net
profit despite poor market conditions.
”Looking back, we are pleased that the actuals were pretty much in the line with the budgeted estimates,” said Singer. ”It demonstrates that, while we have no control over the level of trading volumes on the JSE, we are intimately familiar with the factors that make our business tick.
”In particular, we kept expenses under control and found additional sources of income in order to achieve a full year’s net loss that was lower than budgeted.”
This year Strate is anticipating 14 000 trades a day on the JSE, on-market settlements of 44% of matched trades, off-market settlements of 16% and queries and reports of 3%. The annual revenue to be generated from contract notes is budgeted at R37,4-million.
Once Strate could generate sufficient profits to repay its accumulated deficit, the intention was to reduce the charges to market players as soon as it is economically viable, Singer concluded. – Sapa