Binck is a premium online broker in The Netherlands. It has a small presence in France, Italy and Belgium. It’s listed on Euronext. Once upon a time, Binck launched attacks on the sleepy old retail banks. Luring customers away from ABN Amro, Rabobank and ING.
Das war einmal. The BinckBank is stuck in a moment, and they can’t get out of it. I predict a profit warning and dividend cut.
ABN AMRO Clearing Bank is a household name in the trading industry. For trading firms, it clears 2.4 billion trades a year, on 90 exchanges. It’s the largest clearing bank in Europe. In fields as small sized market makers the bank has a monopoly. They would ditch the small clients if they could.
In the world, ABN Amro Clearing Bank (AACB) ranks as the number three (according to AACB). Matter of definitions, difficult to point out the number one and two. With prime brokerage business, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. With FX there’s Citi and JPM.
Today the European Championship will kick off in France. The Netherlands decided to participate in World Cups only. Saturday the championship will host matches with the national teams of Albania, Wales, Slovakia and Liechtenstein.
More interesting teams show up in the small town of Abcoude. Eighteen teams will battle at the Financial Football Tournament. As always with great weather and sharp organization by Ferry Boekholt from Bennington.
Last year I wrote “Optiver killed it in 2014”. The most succesful Dutch trading firm had a great year. But how to write a headline for their 2015 results? The latest results are nothing short of amazing.
The net profit was €395 million in 2015. That’s almost €150 million more than the previous year. That’s a growth percentage of 60%. Rival trading outfits like IMC, Virtu and Flow Traders saw only modest growth. The results for IMC Financial Markets were called “decent”.
DeGiro needs cash. The discount broker is investing heavily in marketing. Advertising on TV and internet is expensive, and their balance sheet is apparently running empty. I got the hand on a confidential prospectus on a certain DeGiro offering. Showing more colour on the broker.
