Strong trading volumes prompted institutional finance specialist Alpha Group to raise its income and profits forecast ahead of analysts’ expectations for the year.
In a trading update, the London listed platform expects its revenue for 2022 to increase 27% to around £98 million, compared to £77.5 million in the previous year. While its operating profit is anticipated to be in-line with expectations, profit before tax, including interest, is expected to be ahead of forecasts thanks to further positive momentum in late 2022.
In the first half, Alpha Group had its underlying profit before tax up 16% to £17.8 million compared to £15.3 million a year earlier. The rosy forecasts come as the firm said its customer base had expanded rapidly in recent years.
“Trading within our FXRM division has produced strong results, with revenues increasing to approximately £69m (2021: £57m) and client numbers increasing to 1,050,” it added.
The AIM-traded firm attributes the solid results to increased investment in their people, infrastructure, and technology. In particular, Alpha’s alternative banking solutions division outperformed as client demand continues to exceed expectations.
“This investment is already underway and is focused on accelerating future revenue growth and strengthening the long-term scalability and sustainability of our business. Furthermore, in the event our Operating Profit (which excludes interest) exceeds current market expectations for 2023, we will look to make additional investments in discretionary initiatives (e.g. marketing campaigns), designed to further accelerate growth, without becoming embedded into our cost base,” the filing further explains.
Alpha Group revealed that it plans to open its sixth office in Madrid later in the year after it has already built up a sizeable Spanish speaking client base. The Madrid team will be led by long-term Alpha’s employees who have been penetrating these markets from London since 2017. The new office space will also generate a number of jobs for local talents within the B2B sector, as Alpha Group looks to maintain attractive profit margins.
The group already caters to a wide range of clients, including medium sized corporates that deal with currency conversion, international commerce, and payrolls.
The corporate finance specialist has chosen Bristol as the location of its new sales office to drive further growth through providing its existing offering to smaller corporates. The office was initially established in January 2022 to focus on UK companies with turnovers of £5m – £30m, compared to larger cap firms that Alpha has historically served.
Morgan Tillbrook, founder & CEO said: “2022 continued Alpha’s thirteen consecutive years of strong organic and profitable revenue growth. As well as our business model benefitting from being largely non-discretionary, we also benefit from being highly diversified across two decentralised divisions, each with their own product lines and client bases that are sector agnostic and span over 50 countries. Moving into 2023 and beyond, we have all the foundations in place to deliver predictable, defensible, long-term growth and I am therefore looking forward to the year ahead with confidence.”
