Flatex - Grateful for volatility

Flatex reported H120 earnings of €22.4m (+162% y-o-y) and ROE of 23.1%. Volatile markets helped trade executions jump 127% y-o-y to €13.1m. Client numbers continue to grow strongly, up 35% y-o-y. On 21 July 2020, the Dutch central bank gave Flatex the green light to acquire DEGIRO, a leading Dutch broker. The acquisition (agreed in December 2019) is transformational, adding greater scale and breadth of products to make Flatex Europe’s largest retail online broker, present in 18 countries. If we include DEGIRO, the combined number of transactions in H120 would have been 37.6m and the number of customers almost triples to 1.1 million. The shares have reacted well to the news, but still trade at a discount to peers on both P/E and EV/EBIT despite consensus forecasts of above average growth.