Smartbroker Holding AG presents figures for the first half of 2023: pressing ahead with focused investments

Smartbroker Holding AG presents figures for the first half of 2023: pressing ahead with focused investments
 

• Revenues totalled €23.4 million for H1 2023
• EBITDA for the Group amounted to €1.7 million
• Pressed ahead with focussed investments:  SMARTBROKER+ successfully launched
• Assets under custody rose to more than €10 billion

Berlin, 13 September 2023

Smartbroker Holding AG (ISIN: DE000A2GS609, FSE: SB1), one of Germany's leading digital brokers in terms of client assets under custody and the largest publisher-independent financial portal operator in the German-speaking world, today published its financial figures for the first half of 2023.

The Group generated revenues of €23.4 million during the first six months of 2023, which corresponds to a decrease of 16% compared to H1 2022. Around €9 million was attributable to the transaction business and around €15 million to the media business. The challenging macro-economic environment led to subdued capital markets activity – for example, the combined cash equities order book volume of the most important German exchanges decreased by 30% during the first half of 2023 compared the previous year.[1]

Operating EBITDA amounted to €1.7 million in the first half of 2023, which is primarily due to increased investments in the transaction business as well as the weak state of the capital markets. In the first half of 2022, the EBITDA after customer acquisition costs amounted to €4.6 million. In line with these developments, the Company adjusted its guidance for the full year 2023 last week and now expects Group revenues of between €46 million and €51 million, with a consolidated EBITDA after customer acquisition costs of between €-1 million and €1 million.

Full focus on the market launch of SMARTBROKER+

Last year, the management decided to focus on the market launch of SMARTBROKER+ in 2023 – to date, the largest project in the Company's 25-year history. The product development, which resulted in a completely revised and modernized broker, was accompanied by extensive investments, while at the same time reducing the customer acquisition cost to a minimum. Due to the complex and time-intensive preparations for the relaunch of the Company's own broker, the transaction business was not able to contribute to sales to the usual extent.

Although marketing activities were reduced to almost zero, the number of brokerage accounts recorded a small increase to 272 thousand. In the same period, the amount of assets under custody rose from €8.6 billion to more than €10.1 billion.[2]

The Group pressed ahead with its focussed investments and SMARTBROKER+ is currently available on the market in the first stage of deployment. Detailed information about the product can be found at smartbrokerplus.de and in the press release describing the product launch, dated August 30, 2023. In October 2023, the move of existing Smartbroker customers, who open a new custody account with SMARTBROKER+ and agree to being moved, will take place. Subsequently, the acquisition of new customers is to be ramped up again.

Modernization of the stock exchange portals is progressing

The continually subdued situation on the stock markets and the overall economic situation have led to a reduced number of page impressions in the media business. The count decreased from approx. 1.5 billion page impressions in the first half of 2022 to around 1.1 billion in the H1 2023. The long-term nature of the reduced investor interest also had an impact on advertising revenues. To be able to continue to provide an attractive offer for users and advertisers in the future, apps and websites have been modernized in recent months. For example, the wallstreetONLINE brand has been revised visually, and there has also been noticeable investment in the expansion of wallstreetONLINE's social media channels.

André Kolbinger, founder and CEO of Smartbroker Holding AG, commented on the half-year figures presented today: "2023 is a crucial transition year, which is characterized above all by investments in our new trading platform and the modernization of our media offerings. SMARTBROKER+ will contribute to sales on a full year basis from 2024. Moreover, we are also implementing a number of concrete measures to increase and diversify the revenues of our media business. We are pursuing clear cost control for the second half of the year in order to achieve the planned targets for 2023 and are confident that we will soon be able to significantly expand our market positions in both areas – transaction and media – with our revised offerings."

Contract extension for André Kolbinger and Oliver Haugk

The Supervisory Board of Smartbroker Holding AG has decided to extend the contract of André Kolbinger in his role as CEO until the end of 2027. At the same time, the contract of Oliver Haugk, who has been part of the Executive Board since 2017, was extended until 2026. In addition to his role as Chief Product Officer, he now also serves as Co-CEO.

About the Smartbroker Group:

Through its Transaction division, the Smartbroker Group operates SMARTBROKER+ – a next-generation broker that is the only provider in Germany to combine the extensive product range of classic brokers with the extremely favourable pricing conditions of neo brokers. The portfolio also includes the digital fund broker FondsDISCOUNT.de. At the same time, via its Media division, the Group operates four high-reach digital media assets dedicated to bringing capital markets news and information to retail investors (wallstreet-online.de, boersenNews.de, FinanzNachrichten.de and ARIVA.de). With several hundred million monthly page views, the group is by far the largest publisher-independent financial portal operator in the German-speaking world and maintains the largest financial community.

^[1] Order book turnover for XETRA and Frankfurt Stock Exchange for H1 2023 compared to H1 2022 (Source: Deutsche Börse)

^[2] Statements on number of accounts and assets under custody are for all offerings of Smartbroker AG.