Jefferies Financial Group Inc., an investment banking company, has published its financial results for the first quarter of its 2020 financial year on Thursday, revealing a solid uptick in revenues for the three-month period.
According to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for the three months ended February 29, 2020, Jefferies achieved total net revenues of $1.17 billion, a record for the Group.
This represents a significant growth on a yearly comparison, as the same quarter of the prior year had total net revenues of $685.72 million. Therefore, revenues increased by 70.7 percent. Quarter-on-quarter, revenues increased by 56.5 percent.
Taking a look at investment banking revenues, the unit also achieved record quarterly revenues, coming in at $577.5 million. This represents a significant yearly growth of 107.8 percent. Investment banking revenues were also higher by 46.9 percent from the previous quarter.
Fixed income and equities revenue grows 33%
For the first quarter of fiscal 2020, Jefferies posted a total equities and fixed income net revenues of $493.8 million. When measuring this against the first quarter of fiscal 2019, the company has achieved a growth of approximately 33.0 percent, having risen from $371.3 million in Q1 of the company's 2019 financial year.
Commenting on the results, Rich Handler, the CEO, and Brian Friedman, the President, said in the filing: "Jefferies Group's all-time quarterly record net revenues of $1.17 billion and return on tangible equity of 16.1%1 demonstrate the Scalability , operating Leverage and opportunity of our business.
"For years, we have invested and believed in the capacity of our team and operations, as well as the uniqueness of our culture and business model, and are gratified by these results. We had determined that 2020 would be a year in which we would seek to realize on the potential and capabilities of our Investment Banking, Equities, Fixed Income and Asset Management platforms, and these first quarter results demonstrate our considerable progress."
"Our first quarter also reflects record performance in mergers, acquisitions and advisory, solid results in equity underwriting and better performance in debt underwriting, with broad contribution from our sector teams and regional presence. Our Equities and Fixed Income results were strong and we believe consistent with our continually enhanced market position."
