Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEx) has recorded 478.8 million HK dollars (61.38 million U.S. dollars) first-quarter profit, up 95 percent on last year, with income up 49 percent to 854 million HK dollars (109.49 million U.S.dollars), and earnings per share up 96 percent, to 45 cents.

Announcing its first-quarter results Wednesday, HKEx said its operating profit rose 93 percent to 561.6 million HK dollars (72 million U.S. dollars) and total assets up 24 percent to 28.4 billion HK dollars (3.64 billion U.S. dollars).

The quarter also saw a rise of 70 percent on average daily turnover on the Stock Exchange, to 31.2 billion HK dollars (4 billion U.S. dollars). The average daily numbers of derivatives contracts traded on the Futures Exchange surged 37 percent to 87.7 million HK dollars (11.24 million U.S. dollars), and stock-option contracts on the Stock Exchange went up 133 percent to 61.8 million HK dollars (7.92 million U.S. dollars).

Twelve companies were newly listed on the main board and three on the Growth Enterprise Market in the quarter. The total capital raised, including post-listing funds, reached about 33 billion HK dollars (4.23 billion U.S. dollars).

As at March 31, 940 companies were listed on the main board and 201 on the Growth Enterprise Market, with a total market capitalization of about 9.416 trillion HK dollars (1.21 trillion U.S. dollars).

There were 1,366 derivative warrants, eight Exchange Traded Funds, three Real Estate Investment Trusts and 165 debt securities listed as at the end of March.

The average daily turnover in the first quarter was about 31 billion HK dollars (3.97 billion U.S. dollars) on the main board and about 204 million HK dollars (26.15 million U.S. dollars) on the Growth Enterprise Market.

Source: Xinhua