Plus500 planning $175m shareholder returns as FY results beat expectations

(Sharecast News) - Plus500 reported a fall in full-year earnings and revenue on Tuesday, but results were "significantly ahead" of market expectations and the online trading platform announced plans for $175m in shareholder returns. In the year to the end of December 2023, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation fell 25% to $340.5m, while revenue declined 13% to $726.2m.

Plus500 said the "robust" performance came despite lower levels of trading activity across global financial markets during the year.

The company announced additional shareholder returns of $175m, comprising $100m in new share buyback programmes and $75m in dividends.

Chief executive David Zruia said: "Three years ago, Plus500 presented its new strategic plan to become a global, multi-asset fintech group, by expanding into new markets, developing new products and deepening relationships with customers.

"2023 saw further progress against all three strategic objectives: we expanded our US futures businesses, launched a new retail FX OTC trading platform in Japan and extended our portfolio of global regulatory licences to 13. We expanded our core product offering to include a share dealing platform, and a new line of business offering futures and options on futures.

"Our efforts to deepen customer relationships were enhanced by our market-leading technology, and we now have over 26 million customers registered on our platforms. During the period, we achieved a record high average deposit per active customer reflecting our on-going focus on higher value customers and the intuitive nature and reliability of our market-leading technology."