Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Poppy, your course call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Athens Exchange Group conference call to present and discuss the full-year 2022 financial results. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Yiannos Kontopoulos, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nikos Koskoletos, Chief Financial Officer, and Mr. Stelios Konstantinou, Head of Investor Relations. Gentlemen, you may now proceed.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to those of you listening to us from the other side of the Atlantic. We would like to present the financial results of the group for FY 2022 , which were published yesterday and are available in the Investor Relations section of our website, then take any questions that you might have. Our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Yiannos Kontopoulos, will first make some general comments, then our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Nikos Koskoletos, will present the performance of the market and of the group for 2022. I'll now pass the floor to Mr. Kontopoulos.
Thank you very much for the introduction, Stelios. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, and thank you for your patience. I would like to welcome you as well to the full-year 2022 financial results conference call of the Athens Exchange Group. I will take this opportunity to give you a brief overview and status update of our current corporate positioning. The past year has been a challenging one for Athens Exchange Group, as we had to face the tough geopolitical and market conditions created by the war in Ukraine, Europe's energy crisis, and the rising inflation, which, as you know, had a significant impact on most financial markets worldwide. Despite these difficulties, the Greek stock market performed much better than most regional or international markets, driven mostly by the growth of the Greek economy.
On top of that, our new results-oriented strategy focusing on extroversion and digital transformation and our team's hard work and dedication have helped us to overcome the adversity and laid the foundation for the growth of the group. In 2022, we managed to strengthen our financial position in terms of revenue and earnings before interest and taxes. Our net revenue was EUR 37.9 million or 4.8% higher than in 2021. Our EBIT was EUR 8.73 million, 1.6% higher than last year. Despite the difficult macro environment, we have remained committed to our mission of strengthening the role of the capital market of the Greek economy. We have worked actively throughout the year with all ecosystem stakeholders to improve our market's competitiveness and adaptability.
2022 was a year of two halves as far as market activity and capitalization are concerned, as over the course of the year, we saw a strong growth momentum in the first half, followed by a declining trend in the second. Overall, our average daily trading activity increased in 2022 by 3.4%, reaching EUR 73.7 million, and the overall market capitalization has increased as well by 3.7%, reaching EUR 63.3 billion. The growth momentum continues in the Q1 2023, in which market capitalization has exceeded EUR 70 billion. As a result of these increases, our trading-based revenue, that is the revenue from trading and post-trading activities, increased by 6.3% in 2022 compared to 2021, and our market cap-based revenue was also up by 21%. Mr.
Nikos Koskoletos, the Group Chief Financial Officer, will present in detail our financial KPIs in due course. Before I give the floor to Nikos, I would just like to take the opportunity to make a few comments on our path for the next year. Building on the experience we gained in the past 12 months, in 2023 we continue to focus on extroversion, digital innovation, and the enhancement of our services to boost our market's activity. This year we plan to launch new products that will improve and expand the services we provide to our clients. We are also executing a new IT operating model, and we are investing to improve further our system's robustness and efficiency, providing enhanced digital services to our clients.
We are exploring a hybrid corporate venture capital initiative, which will focus on the integration of the next generation digital fintech solutions to the stock exchange environment that will hopefully enhance the service ATHEX provides to its stakeholders in general. Last but not least, in order to strengthen our growth momentum and attract new investments in the Greek capital market, we are organizing multiple extroversion activities in various geographies, such as investor roadshows in Europe and in the U.S. and conferences promoting the Athens Stock Exchange services. Along with these initiatives, we remain committed to promoting sustainability and corporate responsibility as we recognize the importance of sustainable development. Looking ahead to 2023 and beyond, I can say that I'm optimistic about the future of the Athens Exchange Group.
The Greek economy is reemerging stronger after the end of the corona pandemic, fostering the growth of the Greek capital market. Despite the continuing geopolitical adversity, we will keep working in a structured and methodical manner, aiming to upgrade and reinforce the position of ATHEX Group, envisioning its upgrade to developed market. I'm confident that with the vital contribution of our team and the ongoing dedication to extroversion and digital innovation, we will further increase the value we deliver to our shareholders in the years to come. That's all I wanted to say as an introduction to this call. Thank you all for listening and for your continued support and trust in ATHEX. I'll give the floor now to Nikos Koskoletos, who will give you a detailed overview of our full-year financial performance. Nikos, pass the floor to you.
Thank you. Thank you, Yiannos. Good evening and good morning to all. Let's start with the overview of our 2022 financial performance at the top. The consolidated turnover of the group in 2022 was EUR 37.8 million, compared to EUR 36.1 million in 2021, registering a 4.8% increase. Diving deeper, we see that as mentioned, trading-based revenue was up 6% on the back of a 3.4% increase in the average daily traded value in the cash market that we saw in 2022, compared to that of the previous year. Market cap-based revenue, which is the listing and services to issuers, was up 21%. That was due to the 3.7% increase in the average capitalization of the market.
As we have mentioned in the past, the impact of IFRS 15, which prorates revenue from rights issues and IPOs over a three and five-year period respectively. Despite the fact that in 2022, we had much less new capital issued at EUR 1.2 billion, compared to EUR 8.1 billion in 2021. Revenues from services, that is data services, IT, and digital, was down 3%, and that is mostly on the back of the lower use of the Electronic Book Building facility that we offer and lower revenue from the remote shareholder meeting service that we have, given the easing of the social distancing measures seen previously at the height of the pandemic in previous years. Let's look at the revenue line in more detail.
Revenue from trading represents 16% of our consolidated turnover, in 2022 was up 1.4% at EUR 5.9 million versus EUR 5.8 million in 2021. Revenue from post-trading made up 40% of total turnover and amounted to EUR 15.1 million versus EUR 13.9 million in 2021, registering an 8.8% increase. The increase is due to basically a 41% increase in settlement, a 14% increase in subscriptions from operators, and 2.6% increase in equities clearing. As far as revenue from the derivatives market, that is both trading and post-trading is concerned, in 2022, trading activity measured by the average daily number of contracts dropped by 27% to 35,000 contracts versus 48,200 in the previous year.
Revenue in turn was down only 2.3%, and the average revenue per contract increased 35% to just over EUR 0.20 per contract versus EUR 0.15 almost EUR 0.16 in the previous year. This is just to remind that our fees for derivatives contracts depend on the type of investor, the product being traded, and the prices of the underlying securities, so it's a matter of mix of the participants in the derivatives market. Lastly, on derivatives trading and post-trading revenue, in 2022 was EUR 1.84 million versus EUR 1.88 million, corresponding to 9% of total trading and post-trading revenue. Revenue from listing makes up 13% of total turnover. This line includes the quarterly subscription fees paid by listed companies, so it's directly associated with the actual market capitalization.
Fees on rights issues and IPOs and other services to issuers, those amounted to EUR 5 million, up 21% compared to 2021. Revenue from data services make up 9% of total turnover and includes the fees that we collect from data vendors for the provision of ATHEX market data, as well as our revenue from our own offering InBroker Services. The fees that we collect from market data depend essentially on the number of data terminals to which the data vendors disseminate ATHEX market data to, and increased by 4%. As you know, I think it's something that we've covered in the past as well, we have been gradually increasing our data feed prices.
Revenue from IT and digital services make up 19% of total turnover and include revenue from digital services, infrastructure, and technology solutions to mostly the Hellenic Energy Exchange Group and Boursa Kuwait. As I mentioned, the performance this year was affected by the reduced usage of the Electronic Book Building facility that we have and the AXIA e-Shareholders Meeting. Revenue from IT and digital services was down 4.6% to EUR 7 million versus EUR 7.4 million. Finally, in the ancillary services, which may take up the smallest part of our turnover at 3%, and basically what we have there is some rent that we earn from our real estate that we have and from ancillary services that we offer.
That was down 13% to EUR 1.2 million compared to EUR 1.5 million. That was mostly because of a grant that was booked in 2021, so it's mostly a base effect of the increased 2021 figure, and not a trend. Moving on to the expenditure side, total OpEx increased by 10.5% in 2022 to reaching EUR 24 million compared to EUR 21.7 million that we had in 2021. Breaking down the operating expenses, we see that personnel costs were up 6.3% in 2022 at EUR 12.4 million compared to EUR 11.7 million in 2021. All other expenses increased by roughly EUR 1.5 million, i.e., by 16% at EUR 11.6 million versus EUR 10.1 million.
The highlights of the other expense category includes a significant increase in the utility bill due to the persistent high electricity prices in 2022 compared to 2021, resulting in a EUR 1.5 million electricity bill compared to close to EUR 900,000 in 2021. However, electricity does count for a smaller part of our OpEx at 6.2%, but the delta was significant, and that's why it is a notable change. The 20% increase in the other operating expenses was also impacted by the fact that we were hit by increased insurance premiums given the dynamics of the particular market with regards to FMIs and the fact that we also have a cyber security insurance policy.
Personnel remuneration and expenses accounts for 52% of total operating expenses compared to 63.7% in 2021. Headcount at the group level on December 31st was 236 FTEs compared to 228 in 2021. All this brings us to the our operating profitability in terms of EBIT increased by 1.7%, and that was to EUR 8.7 million compared to EUR 8.6 million in 2021.
Most notably, the number that impacted that change was the fact that, as you probably saw in the Q4, a decrease in the depreciation rate that mostly dealt with the fact that we changed the effective usage lifetime of the building, our main U.S.A. property from 25 years to 50 years, basically bringing it in line with market practice and as per our independent evaluators. That is something that will structurally flow through to the next years. In 2022, we also booked EUR 625,000 revenue from tax returns resulting from a federal court judgment that we saw that in previous quarters.
Just wanted to mention here that we've appealed to have a EUR 270,000 return, but that is something that we'll have to wait on the judicial system to have a relevant resolution. The bottom line, net after-tax earnings for the group amount to EUR 8.2 million, are relatively flat to 2021. Given the adverse performance, we the board will be proposing to the upcoming AGM a EUR 0.15 dividend per share. That is a EUR 9 million payout, implying a 4.8% yield off the 2022 closing price, and basically just less than 4% yield off our current price, and will be grossed up as per the treasury shares that we have as well.
Probably looking at just over EUR 0.156 per share. On the balance sheet side now, the cash and cash equivalent of the group dropped to EUR 60.6 million compared to EUR 72 million. Most notably here, the actual effect was the payment of last year's dividends. The buyback program that we had and pretty much run for most of the year that was terminated towards the end of the year, and we had a CapEx of close to EUR 4 million. Approximately 24% of the cash, that's EUR 15 million, is kept at the central bank. The interest rates there up until mid-summer were negative.
As we have explained in the past, that is held at the CCP level, and we need to hold these funds at the central bank for regulatory purposes. As I mentioned, with regards to our share buyback program, that was completed at the end of November. We have acquired close to 2.5 million shares, and the average price there is at EUR 3.34. This concludes our comments for the 2022 financial results of the group, and we'd like to pass around to the operator for any Q&A that you might have.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Alevizakos Alexandros with AXIA Ventures. Please go ahead.
Hi. Hello. Thank you for the presentation and well done on this results. I've got a couple of questions, if I may. One is I would like an indication of how you think about your CapEx going forward. This year it was slightly higher than what we have seen. What would be the right level to think about CapEx going forward, given that you've got a number of plans in your agenda? The second thing, I didn't get what is the plan with the EUR 2.5 million of buybacks. Are you planning to use these shares to sell them back, or are you planning to cancel them, or will they be used for some bonuses? Thank you very much.
Thank you for your question. Your set of questions? I think Nikos is aching to answer both. I'll do the reverse. I'll let him answer, and then if I need to add something, I'll let you know. Nikos, go ahead.
Okay. Yes, the going forward, I think what were the reason our CapEx for this year, the one that came up is that we brought forward some investments that were already planned. We, given the expedited nature of the things that we want to do, some investments were pre-booked in the 2022 numbers. I think we had talked about a EUR 7 million program over the next two years. Possibly we might be looking at EUR 8 million, just over that. I would say that the number that we registered this year is pretty much or close to the number that we will be having over the next couple of years.
Now with regards to the share buyback, the shares actually are the mandate for the shares that we have right now, as per the GM resolution, is to it's either to cancel or to be used as compensation as the board may see fit. I don't know if that covers your question or not?
Yes . Thank you very much. A follow-up, if I may. The headcount just got up a little bit, and I would like to know what do you use in your planning as the wage inflation and what should be the kind of optimal number of FTEs that you will have, like in the next couple of years?
Let me just give you the headline and then Nikos can add, whatever you think I might have missed. I think we're getting closer to the optimal number. We might be, you know, plus or minus a few more people, at least according to our budgeting for, this year. That would be pretty much it. My philosophy about what we needed to do here in terms of, our overall, approach to this particular expense line is to view it effectively as a dislocation from the past few years. Our needs ahead require these types of interventions in 2022 and 2023.
I think that's pretty much the horizon of, you know, taking care of what at least, the executive team thought of, the dislocation, with respect to the number of FTEs. Also obviously, as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, taking into consideration general inflationary pressures and also an increased competition with regards to IT talent. Again, the, the FTE approach and the dislocation that we saw is not just merely IT, because in IT sometimes it's retaining people as opposed to, you know, really making some sort of a complete difference in strategy in terms of the talent that you need. Also looking ahead in terms of what we expect, the horizon and the opportunities to be in terms of our main line of business. Those, those are the thoughts behind it.
You know, the short version of the answer is that is basically 2022 and 2023, the numbers are getting close.
That's great. Thank you. Once again, well done for the set of results.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Kalogeropoulos Yannis with Beta Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. Good evening. I have two questions actually. One relates to the potential pipeline of new listings, and what should we be expecting for as new listings for 2023? The second question relates in general to your OpEx lines. If we examine all your OpEx lines or your OpEx elements, every OpEx line, I mean, personnel, maintenance, PD rises and goes up on a double-digit growth, which far than more exceeds your top line growth. Is that something that should be or is expected to be reversed in 2023 or the growth rates will continue going up at these rates or maybe slow down a bit? Thank you.
Okay. With respect to the pipeline of new listings. Look, there's a pipeline and there's a pipeline, meaning that, you know, things their intentions and then things happen or good things happen and bad things happen. What I can tell you in terms of the at least the sense behind it, there's definitely interest. I think that that's my personal opinion. I think that one of the major issues that will set the stage will be the whether we have a big entry into that pipeline taking place in 2023 or not. I think that potentially could be a catalyst in terms of how our visibility on the pipeline will likely play out.
What I wanna say is that, interestingly, especially when you start from a relative dearth of IPOs, what happens is that things happen bump stop. It's almost like a Poisson process, right? They don't happen in some sort of an orderly fashion. Getting a big one in 2023, I think will make the whole difference. We shall see. That's the answer to the first question. Overall, I think there is interest. We, you know, for our interactions with the ecosystem, I think there's we should be optimistic. In terms of the OpEx line. As I mentioned, look, there are some factors that we don't quite control, but none of the actions that we've taken in 2022 and in 2023 are passive.
In essence, for me, a lot of what we need to do is redirection, taking care of some dislocations and positioning for what might come next. I think the right reassessment for this will happen in 2024, just to see if what we've done is make sense or not. For now, what's happening and, you know, some of the double-digit growth will go into single digit, and some of the single digit will go to double digit because when you make some sort of interventions in the middle of the year, as you can understand, arithmetically, they'll show part of it will show in 2023, and so on and so forth.
Ultimately, for me, the way you should look at it, at this move is basically 2022 and 2023 is a transition period. And, it's not something that you should, extend into further into the future. Nor does it mean that this we are staying passively against it. We are, you know, we are making adjustments and decisions as we see fit and to the extent that we can.
Okay. Thanks a lot for the, for your answers.
Great.
The next question comes from the line of Alexandros Boulougouris with Wood & Co. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Just a quick question on the depreciation line, which, Nick, you mentioned, the decline in the Q4. If my numbers are correct, it was extremely low. What should be the run rate now per quarter from the Q1 of 2023 that we should assume in our models? Thank you.
Hi. Hi, Alex. Yes. Actually, because the change happened at the end of the decision for the change was made at the end of the year. Basically, the annualized impact effectively was impacted the Q4. It's not an organic thing. It's just a matter of making the change, annualizing it, and recording it for our year-end numbers. I think the one way that you should consider is the one that we reported in 2022. Basically, there was that debasement versus 2021, and that should be the number going forward.
We're starting from around EUR 3.7 million-EUR 5 million.
Correct. Like, from the EUR 4.5 million that we were, the number, it would be, yes, the new base for 2022 is EUR 3.7 million.
Got it. Thank you.
Our next question comes from the line of Osman Memisoglu with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello. Many thanks for your time and the presentation. I just wanted to check to see if you could potentially elaborate on how we should think about the focus on extroversion. Any more color there would be helpful. Thank you.
Sorry, I had my line muted. Look, for me, this is probably the thrust of the opportunity, at least in the next couple of years. Meaning that, we think there is an idiosyncratic offering out of the Athens Stock Exchange, for the international community, which is a big part of our investor base. As I mentioned, part of the initiative here has to be us taking a much more active role in terms of bringing new clients and new investors to take a look at what we have to offer.
Meaning that we need to find the right type of alliances with market participants, which will open the doors and will help us nudge the interest of institutional investors from different constituencies to take a look towards what Greece has to offer as opposed to something else. There are always many different opportunities. That means that we invest a lot of time and thought process in terms of how we accommodate that type of marketing, if you may, of what the product is out there. As you well know from your experience, we need to repeat that and keep repeating that many, many times. It sounds simpler in principle, but in reality it's a big effort.
That's effort number one. The second one, the second aspect here is to make sure that we help create products that will meet the needs of the market. Meaning that if we can come up with initiatives that will allow a greater propensity for investors to increase their positions in Greece or to open up their positions because the derivative sides, for example, will work in a smoother fashion or in a more meaningful fashion, then that becomes a priority for us, and that's definitely one of the areas that we are looking at intensely in 2023. That relates also to aspects that relate to, you know, making sure that our stock lending capacities are optimized.
I guess I'm using euphemisms here, but I wanna make them a lot more aggressive and a lot, richer than they have been out there. The team is really focusing on those aspects. There is also an effort to look at how we can make some changes with respect to the pricing scheme that we are using. We are well advanced in those thought processes. We're gonna test them relatively soon. This is something that potentially we'll see this year.
We're also looking at revamping our rule book in order to make certain aspects of the market work a lot more efficiently and smoothly, and to really reflect the necessities of what the market is requesting nowadays, both internationally and domestically. Or, you know, also looking at the relaunching of the alternative market, which is, you know, for us to help us with the thrust of the Greek economy still revolves around, you know, small and medium enterprises.
That needs to be a parallel target that we have actively looked at for during 2022, and we're looking for initiatives, including one tomorrow, that doesn't necessarily only cover, for example, initiatives that will help small and medium enterprises, but also newcomers into the IPO space in Greece. If you want, just take a look at our website. There's an interesting initiative tomorrow. Last but not least, I'm sure you guys have visited at times our website. Look, we can do a lot more there, both in terms of explaining what we do, but also facilitating the process of how people access and get informed about our market.
That's a big investment item for 2023, and I hope that this will help also on the part of extroversion. You probably asked for a shorter answer, I'll just stop here and happy to.
No, no. That's very helpful. Really appreciate the color. Thank you.
All right. Sure.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of Osman Memisoglu with Ambrosia Capital. Please go ahead.
Just on shareholder remuneration, you've basically followed up with a similar dividend payment. Should we expect a similar return of capital level later on this year? Thank you.
Nikos, I'll let you, take—
Hi. Yeah, sure. Hi, Osman. No, I think it's something that we had covered in terms of capital return. Starting off from last year, where we basically paid out 100% of the cash distribution from as a dividend. We are doing the same this year and pretty much will be.
Continue.
We'll continue to do that way.
Okay, perfect. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to listen in. If you would like to speak with us, of course, we'll be happy to take any questions that you might have that you wish to speak with us in private. Thanks again, and have a great day. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.