ICAP blamed the eurozone crisis and “constraints on market liquidity” for weak trading volumes in derivatives in the year to March, which caused the interdealer broker’s revenues to fall 3 per cent.
Michael Spencer, Icap’s chief executive, said that the company had prepared its trading systems for a Greek return to the drachma. “Bluntly, they just need to organise it as efficiently as possible,” he said.
ICAP suffered a 7 per cent fall in pre-tax profit, with particularly weak trading volumes in US corporate bonds, while operating profit from voice broking in the Americas fell by more than a third.