Plus500’s Q4 Remained Dull, Starts New $25M Share Buyback Program

London-listed Plus500 published its unaudited financials for last year on Wednesday. Though the key numbers for the final quarter remained dull, the yearly figures turned out to be excellent for the brokerage firm.

Revenue of the Trading Platform Trading Platform In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real In the FX space, a currency trading platform is a software provided by brokers to their respective client base, garnering access as traders in the broader market. Most commonly, this reflects an online interface or mobile app, complete with tools for order processing.Every broker needs one or more trading platforms to accommodate the needs of different clients. Being the backbone of the company’s offering, a trading platform provides clients with quotes, a selection of instruments to trade, real Read this Term for the last quarter of 2020 was $91.9 million, which was a decline of 4 percent year-on-year. Additionally, EBITDA slid to $19.9 million from Q4 of 2019’s $56.6 million. This was a massive 65 percent drop.

The performance of the company in the previous three quarters was solid, and thus it ended the year with impressive numbers. Plus500 ended 2020 with a total revenue of $872.5 million, compared to the previous year’s $354.5 million. That was a year-on-year jump of 146 percent.

Moreover, EBITDA surged by 168 percent, with revenue increasing from 2019’s $192.3 million to $515.9 million. It ended the year with a net profit of $500.1 million from 2019’s profit of $151.7 million.

The client activities on the brokerage platform remained excellent throughout the year. It onboarded 50,314 new traders in Q4 of 2020. This was a massive jump from the consecutive quarter of the previous year, which saw an addition of only 19,489 clients.

The number of active traders in the quarter remained 117 percent higher with 215,305 traders active on Plus500 in Q4 of 2020, while in Q4 of 2019 only 99,247 clients were active.

Overall in 2020, the number of active clients went up by 117 percent to 434,296, and 294,728 new traders signed up with the broker. 2020 was an impressive year for onboarding new clients, and Plus500 brought in 223 percent more new traders than the previous year.

Another Share Buyback Program

Additionally, the broker strengthened its balance sheet, ending the year with a cash balance of $593.9 million. Further, it is going to initiate another share buyback program for 2021 under which up to $25 million of company shares will be acquired.

Plus500 has had two share buyback programs previously, the most recent one will end by the end of this month. It revealed that $88.8 million in its own shares were bought back in 2020.

Focusing on R&D

Commenting on the results, Plus500 CEO, David Zruia said: “2020 was an exceptional year for Plus500, in unprecedented market conditions where we delivered a record performance.”

“We will continue to invest in our business with approximately $50m to be incrementally invested in R&D over the next three years designated to develop new products and services, drive innovation and scale our technology, including the establishment of a new R&D centre in Israel.”