The Luxembourg Stock Exchange and its wholly-owned subsidiary Fundsquare suffered a 17% fall in profits last year, a drop the group blamed on Wednesday on lower investment returns.
The exchange also marked a change at the top, with Robert Scharfe stepping down after nine years as CEO and Julie Becker taking over the top job on Wednesday, a change that had already been announced last year.
Becker joined the stock exchange eight years ago after legal positions at several financial companies in Luxembourg, beginning in 2000. She founded the Luxembourg Green Exchange in 2016 to encourage sustainable investment.
Luxembourg Stock Exchange Group includes subsidiary Fundsquare, a platform for cross-border distribution of investment funds. The group reported a €11.2 million profit for 2020, about the same as two years earlier. But in 2019, the group’s profit stood at €13.5 million.
Revenues totalled €51.2 million for 2020, about 5% more than the previous year.
The results “reflect a healthy financial situation and business model … I am happy to leave the exchange in a good shape in the capable hands of my successor Julie Becker,” Scharfe said in a statement.
Unlike many others, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange makes most of its business from listing securities, rather than trading them. In 2020, it listed 10,800 new securities — a 4% increase over 2019 — as governments, other public institutions and private companies sought to raise money to finance the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, the company said.
The Luxembourg Times has a new mobile app, download here! Get the Luxembourg Times delivered to your inbox twice a day. Sign up for your free newsletters here.
2022 Mediahuis Luxembourg S.A. All rights reserved