Singapore Exchange suffers 23% drop in earnings

Securities Revenue also fell 15.5% amid market uncertainty.

According to OCBC, with the uncertainty in most markets, this has been dampened investor confidence and dragged down the full-year performance of the Singapore Exchange (SGX). SGX posted 4QFY12 net earnings of S$61.1m, down 23% YoY, resulting in a 1.1% drop in FY12 earnings to S$291.8m.

Here's more from OCBC:

This was slightly below market expectations, which was going for full year net earnings of S$301m. Securities Revenue fell 15.5% to S$244.1m in FY12, and this was fortunately mitigated by an 18% rise in Derivatives Revenue to S$167.5m.

As a result of this, Securities Revenue now accounted for 37.7% of revenue versus 46.3% in FY10, while Derivatives Revenue rose from 20.5% to 25.9% for the same period. The final base dividend remained unchanged at 4 cents for the last quarter with a variable and also unchanged dividend of 11 cents, making full year payout of 27 cents (same as FY11). Management has reiterated its commitment to the 16 cents per year base dividend payout.