DFM profit up on high trading

Dubai Financial Market Co (DFM) said fourth-quarter profit rose as trading surged, beating forecasts.

Net income in the three months to December 31 was Dh546.67 million, according to Reuters calculations based on full-year data the Middle East's only publicly traded exchange company gave on its website.

DFM Chairman Essa Kazim told Reuters the bourse posted a three-month profit of about Dh550m. He could not give comparative figures with the same period in 2006, when the Dubai government sold a stake in an initial public offering and private share sale.

"There was a jump in trading," Kazim said by telephone. "Volumes were higher."

Fourth-quarter revenue almost quadrupled to Dh600m, compared with Dh160m in the third quarter, Kazim said. Income from trading during the fourth-quarter was Dh408m, he said.

Analysts' forecasts for DFM's fourth-quarter profit ranged from Dh336.3m to Dh411.22m in a Reuters survey last month, for an average of Dh385.3m.

DFM made Dh865.33m in the first nine months of 2007, including Dh397.31m in operating profit, according to financial statements posted on the stock market regulator's website.

Full-year profit rose 77 per cent to Dh1.412 billion, or 18 fils per share, beating its own forecast of as much as Dh1.2bn, Kazim said. That included Dh468.03m in earnings from IPO proceeds.

The government raised $435m in a public and private share sale in November 2006 that was almost 125 times oversubscribed. (Reuters)