The New York Stock Exchange said on Monday its second-quarter earnings more than doubled as legal, advertising and other costs fell. The exchange, which in April announced plans to buy electronic trading firm Archipelago Holdings Inc, posted net income of $13 million, against $5 million in the year-ago quarter.
Chief Financial Officer Amy Butte said on a conference call to journalists that the NYSE had excluded a large amount of merger-related expenses from the numbers.
The exchange capitalised about $1 million of merger-related expenses in the second quarter, she said. Her current estimate is that the total cost to be capitalised could be about $14 million to $15 million.
The latest results were boosted by the previously announced restatement of NYSE financial data back to 2002.
In July, the company restated its historical financial statements to conform with US accounting principles ahead of becoming a public company. This included the way it accounts for the costs of software developed for internal uses and accounting for leases.
Revenue for the second quarter was $276.3 million, up 1.6 percent from the year-ago period. Listing fee revenue rose 4.4 percent to $85.5 million. The revenue figure excludes US Securities and Exchange Commission activity remittance, or the transaction fees investors pay to fund the government's regulation of financial markets.
The NYSE has to pay transaction fees to the SEC based on the volume of securities sold on its market. These fees are borne by broker-dealers, who in turn pass them on to customers. The exchange's expenses fell 5 percent from the 2004 second quarter to $254.7, as advertising spending declined.