Westhouse Holdings sees primary commissions slide

Brokerage and research house, Westhouse Holdings, has reported falling revenues as primary commissions have dried up.

Operating revenues in the six months to the end of June were £5.1m, down from the £5.2m in the same period of last year.

Administrative costs and a decline in primary commission fees pushed the group into an underlying loss of £1.4m before redundancy and other restructuring costs.

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Commenting on the results, Christopher Getley, Chief Executive said: "As an early sector consolidator we have materially increased the size of our business while delivering £10m of annualised cost efficiencies. Westhouse now has one of the lowest cost bases in our industry.

"Our determination to capture strategic advantage during a time of considerable change in the financial markets has ensured that we continue to attract high quality talent to the firm, particularly amongst our research teams. Our approach is working as evidenced by the growth in our secondary commissions and retainer income."

In the last six months secondary commissions rose 93% while advisory income rose 262%. The problem for Westhouse has been that, with reduced market activity caused by the Eurozone crisis, it has seen a £1.9m drop in primary fees.

In morning trading the stock dropped 3.9% and is now down 73% since the start of the year.

BS