ICE Earns 94 Cents per Share

Three more earnings reports today. This morning, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) said they made 94 cents per share for their Q4. That’s two cents more than expectations. Revenues rose 14% to $1.3 billion. ICE’s operating margin was 58%. For the year, ICE made $3.59 per share. That’s up 21% over 2017.

“2018 marked our 13th consecutive year of record revenues – a track record directly attributable to customer demand for our risk management solutions and the investments we’ve made to enhance our technology, expand our content and broaden our distribution,” said ICE Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey C. Sprecher. “As we look to 2019, we remain focused on bringing mission-critical solutions to our customers and delivering value to our stockholders.”

Scott A. Hill, ICE Chief Financial Officer, added: “In addition to record revenues, we generated record cash flows in 2018, enabling us to return nearly $1.8 billion in capital to stockholders, more than any year in our history. As we enter 2019, we remain committed to prudent capital management and a disciplined approach to investment to support continued growth and to enhance long-term stockholder value.”

ICE is also raising its dividend by 15%. The quarterly dividend is increasing from 24 cents to 27.5 cents per share. The dividend is payable on March 29 to stockholders of record as of March 15.

ICE provides guidance for several metrics except EPS. Wall Street had been expecting 2019 earnings of $3.90 per share and that appears a little over-optimistic. Shares of ICE are currently down about 3%.

Posted by on February 7th, 2019 at 8:20 am


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