GERMANY – Stock exchange group Deutsche Boerse says its acquisition on Clearstream International means that 25% of its revenue now comes from custody.

Deutsche Boerse bought Clearstream in July 2002 and says that “some 25%” of its annual revenues “is attributable to the very stable custody business” of Clearstream.

It said that the face value of the securities in custody fell eight percent to 6.9 trillion euros as at the end of 2002.

Overall, the company reported a 26% growth in earnings before interest and tax to 351.2 million euros and a 46% growth in sales revenue to 1.11 billion euros for 2002. The results come against the background of a 44% decline in the value of the benchmark DAX Index of German stocks in 2002.

The revenue growth was due to banking income, and clearing and settlement and custody commissions.

It was confident of achieving its earnings target of 440-460 million euros in 2003, due to the economies of scale and “vertical integration” of its businesses.

But the company recognized that “in spite of its diversified business portfolio, and in spite of its various types of business along the various links in the value chain – Deutsche Boerse essentially operates a monolithic business”.

It said that the number of transactions on its Eurex and Xetra trading platforms rose, by 19% and 21% respectively – but the average deal value declined.