New Cenkos appointment is second female chair of a UK stockbroker
Cenkos has today announced the appointment of Lisa Gordon as its new chairman, the second female to be appointed as chair of a UK stockbroker.
Gordon was the youngest woman to be made director of a listed company when she joined the board of media group Chrysalis at the age of 28.
She is currently a non-executive director of Aim-listed Alpha FX Group and artificial intelligence business Albert Technologies.
It marks the second time in less than a year that a female has been appointed to a chairman role at a stockbroker in the UK. Last January Lorna Tilbian was named as City broker Dowgate Capital’s new chair.
The news coincided with a positive trading update for the firm as a strong 2019 represented 15 years of unbroken full-year profitability.
Following on from the firm’s interim results released last September, Cenkos has not been immune to the challenging market conditions that persisted throughout 2019.
Cenkos implemented steps to reduce its cost base, incurring approximately £1.4m of restructuring costs, in response to the unfavourable market backdrop. Its annual fixed cost base today is anticipated to be more than £3m lower than in 2019.
The stockbroker added that despite concerns around Brexit and the election, the latter part of the year saw an improvement in revenues.
Added to that, a strong pipeline of IPOs and secondary fundraisings are expected into 2020, with an expectation of a final dividend pay-out for 2019 when it releases its results next month.
Chief executive Jim Durkin said: “With levels of new issues and IPos for growth companies being at an unprecedented low in 2019, it is estament to the quality of our staff and the strength of our model that we were able to maintain our record of having been profitable every year since incorporation.”
“Market conditions may still be impacted by factors outside our control but we have started 2020 well and we look forward to the year ahead.”
Shares in Cenkos were up more than 5 per cent at 11.45am.