On the results:
We are delighted with the results, we delivered an unexpectedly strong performance against a challenging backdrop with our headline earnings up by 12%. That was really underpinned by our deliberate attempts to diversify our revenue across asset classes. So while our equity market was down in value traded by nine and a half percent, our bond market commodities, and financial derivatives were all in very positive territory. In addition to that, we've also invested heavily in organic and inorganic growth that is non trading related. In fact, our revenue relating to non trading revenue is now almost a billion rand, and it now contributes 37%, to our overall revenues. Our Information Services was up by 16% and our Investor Services is up by 20%.
On the decline in trading revenue:
Trading revenue is cyclical, it does go up and down. And we will continue to focus on our core, we will continue to invest in technology, and in infrastructure that enables an efficient market and trading environment. But that said, we still need to buffer ourselves against the ups and the downs of the market volatility. And we do intend to continue to diversify, we will continue to invest in the core, we will continue to invest in Information Services and really unlock value through new products in our very modern technology. We also announced a groundbreaking collaboration with Amazon Web Services, whereby the first phase of the project will be to modernise and to upgrade our back office accounting system. Now that's really talking to the core. But what we're planning to do there is to quite materially reduce our costs in that system, and then to pass those costs back to our trading members, and thereby reduce their costs and help their margins. And so this strategy is not just designed to increase our revenues generally, but also to give back to our market participants,
On the delisting trend:
We've actually seen a bit of a switch in the trend that we're seeing. Delistings are very much a context of the macro economic backdrop. Over the past five to seven years, we've seen uncharacteristically low interest rate in an environment which meant the debt was cheaper to raise the equity. Now with the rising interest rate and inflation environment, equity is looking much more attractive. And so we've got up to 10 listings in our pipeline in the public domain. Some of those are around unlocking shareholder value such as WeBuyCars, which is going to be listing on the 11th of April, the unbundling of Boxer from from Pick n' Pay, Rainbow Chickens and then we've got a number of inward listings from London Stock Exchange and those are in the resources and within the property REITs space. So these listings are really starting to shape the trend. We are cautiously optimistic. I wouldn't say that we're out of the woods yet. But we are certainly starting to see green shoots on the horizon.