rode draakLast year has been a profitable year for Optiver. CEO Paul Hilgers, who took over the helm six months ago, reported a profit of € 174 million over 2013. That’s 23% more compared with previous year.

Trading revenue was up 26% to an impressive € 466 million. The expenses were up a few million as it hired more employees for IT, back office trade processing and administration

Outperforming rival IMC

Once again Optiver earned more than long term rival IMC, which saw a profit of €127 million and trading revenue of €403 million in the same period.

Big in Japan

Unfortunately there’s no annual report available just yet. Company decided to release the figures to a few newspapers before releasing the full report. Main comments in the FD was more than half of the profits come from outside the European Union.

Particularly Hong Kong and Japan have seen very good trading conditions. Due to the aggressive monetary policy of Shinzo Abe, the trading volumes in Japan doubled. Volumes in Europe and the US have been flat.

Company is about to expand in the US in other asset classes, but targets organic growth without acquisitions. This in contrast to IMC, which bought Goldman Sachs’s post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Jack