London based market maker XTX Markets has released its financial results (for all of its UK based entities) for 2022, showing an incredible continued growth trajectory for the company.
In FY2022, XTX Markets posted combined Revenue of £2.485 billion (£1.477bn in 2021) for its three UK entities, marking a 68% YoY increase from the previous year. Net profit for the group in 2022 came to £1.095 billion, versus £667 million in 2021 – a 64% increase.
The financial figures are the combined total of three XTX UK entities: XTX Markets Technologies Ltd, XTX Markets Ltd, and XTX Markets Trading Ltd.
XTX Markets is a quantitative-driven electronic proprietary trading and market-maker firm covering a variety of financial instrument types. XTX partners with counterparties, exchanges and e-trading venues globally to provide liquidity in the equity, FX, fixed income and commodity markets. XTX was founded and is majority-owned by mathematician Alex Gerko. Mr. Gerko, who holds a PhD in Mathematics from Moscow State University, has recently renounced his Russian citizenship (he is also a British citizen) and has come out strongly against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He started his financial career in equities and subsequently in FX at Deutsche Bank. Before founding XTX he headed up the market-making team at GSA Capital.
According to company sources, XTX’s total lit pan-European Equities market share in FY2022 (per the CBOE website and internal XTX figures) was over 18%. XTX has been the largest European equities SI (systematic internaliser) by market share three years running. In terms of FX, XTX is top-five globally overall across all products for market share.
The past year also saw some management changes at XTX, with the company hiring former JP Morgan executive Hans Buehler as Deputy CEO, and he was later named Co-CEO with founder Alex Gerko.
During 2021 the XTX group took steps to distinguish its trading on exchanges and similar venues from its direct to counterparty trading activities and moved to a model where the proprietary trading on exchanges and similar venues is conducted primarily from XTX Markets Trading Ltd, and quoting directly to counterparties is conducted primarily from XTX Markets Limited.
Most of the Revenue (£1.5 billion) and virtually all of the XTX group’s Profit (£1.076 billion) was booked in the company’s XTX Markets Technologies Ltd subsidiary, although that company’s principal activity is the development, enhancement, protection and provision of intellectual property and associated services to affiliates. However the way Revenues and Profits are booked within XTX do not seem at all to be a tax avoidance play. Indeed, according to the Sunday Times Alex Gerko was (in 2021) Britain’s largest individual taxpayer, paying an estimated £487 million to the government purse.
