Optiver financial and legal reports

During rainy weekends my favorite pastime is reading financial statements. Especially those from market makers such as Optiver. Firm has released their key figures to the press earlier, but here are the core financial statements (pdf). No surprises in terms of profitability, but it’s worth a closer look at employee compensation.

Modest compensation for employees

Headcount is down with 10% to 584 employees. The average compensation for them was 157.000, including an average bonus of 63.000. While that’s enough to make a living, compared with the annual profit it’s pretty disappointing. Traders are subtantially better rewarded elsewhere. Compare the figures with IMC – which is earning less than Optiver in trading revenues except for 2009.

Hammer case and Tibra trouble

There is finally some more color on the legal cases running. In two weeks the mediation talks will be held with CFTC on August 5th, and the everlasting problems with Tibra will continue in june 2012. Court will be hosting this event for eight long weeks. Provisions for the infamous Hammer incident remain the same at a level of 13 million. As I understood the CFTC agreement will be followed by a mirrored class action and finally there is a criminal investigation going on by the Department of Justice.

Another small note on something completely different. Comments below can be rated with a fast and easy thumbs up or down system. A major technical breakthrough.