WARSAW STOCK EXCHANGE
Q4 2025 and 2025 EARNINGS CALL TRANSCRIPT
24 March 2026
Łukasz Kucharski, Head of IR Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Good afternoon and good morning everyone. Welcome to the Warsaw Stock Exchange Q4 2025 and Full
Year Results Call. Thank you for joining us. Let me introduce today's speakers. We have with us the CEO of
the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Mr. Tomasz Bardzilowski; the CFO, Marcin Rulnicki; and the CEO of our
subsidiary, the Polish Power Exchange, Mr. Piotr Listwon. We have planned a 20–25 minute presentation
followed by a Q&A session. And now, without further ado, let me pass the floor to our CEO, Tomasz.
Tomasz Bardzilowski, CEO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
[slide 2]
Hello. Good afternoon and good morning. 2025 was a record year for the Polish capital market and for the
Warsaw Stock Exchange. When you look at the cash equity turnover, it was up 42% year-on-year, and also
the record-high performance of our indices. The main index, WIG, was up 47%, and MSCI Poland was up
68%. This helped our revenues in the cash equities business and, as a result of that, our consolidated top
line went up by 19% year-on-year to a record high of PLN 552 million, driven by financial market revenues
up 23% and also helped by quite solid and strong revenues from commodity markets, up 12.5% last year. In
terms of operating costs, they grew by a single-digit number, which was an achievement, of 9.9%. Costincome ratio fell by 5 percentage points to 66% and helped strong operating leverage. Our adjusted EBITDA
went up by 38% and adjusted net profit by 30% to almost PLN 205 million. CapEx increased 35% year-onyear to PLN 75 million. However, thanks to strong cash flow, the net cash at the end of the year went up by
4% to PLN 384 million. Also, we are happy to say that the performance of our stock was quite strong last
year, and it was up 61%, and including dividend the total return was 68.5%. Our market cap increased by
more than PLN 1 billion last year.
[slide 3]
The turnover last year went up by 42%. And we are very happy to say that compared to our peer exchanges,
the liquidity on the Warsaw Exchange remains relatively solid. In terms of the velocity ratio, i.e., turnover to
market cap, we are the second-most liquid exchange in Europe after Deutsche Börse.
[slide 4]
When you look at the beginning of this year, the first two months were also very strong in terms of turnover.
The sum of turnover in January and February was up over 50% on a year-on-year basis. Obviously, this is
also due to the higher volatility on global markets.
[slide 5]
We are very happy to see a very strong growth in the ETF business - the most important products for us in
terms of our strategy, especially in attracting retail investors. The ETFs turnover doubled last year, and then
we have very strong beginning of this year when the turnover went up by over 200%. We have added 14 new
ETFs since last year and very happy to have one of the largest Polish financial institutions, the issuer PZU,
launching the first ETF on Polish stocks on WIG20 and WIG40 index. This was just a week ago, and we hope
for PZU and for more Polish financial institutions to issue ETFs on our market this year.
[slide 6]
Also very happy to see a strong ECM market. While we have had only three IPOs, the ECM market has been
very active last year with ABBs and SPOs, and the total number of transactions exceeded PLN20 billion, or
more than $5 billion, and also this year we have a good start with some large ABBs, and also quite active
market in terms of SPOs – happy to see capital raising by some mid-cap and small companies.
[slide 7]
A quite active corporate bond market last year in terms of the total value of issuance of corporate bonds —
PLN 33 billion compared to PLN 31 billion in 2024 — and a very strong beginning of the year with PLN 5
billion issuance already. We also point out a strong mortgage covered bond market, and here we are very
happy to have the first benchmark retail issue of mortgage bonds done by PKO Bank Hipoteczny.
[slide 8]
When comparing our results for 2025, the first year of our three‑year strategy, with our financial ambitions.
In terms of revenues, we were able to exceed significantly our targets. This also led to slightly higher OpEx,
but some of the costs were variable. In terms of EBITDA, 38% growth compared to the target range of 8–
12%. Very happy to see a cost‑income ratio at 66% - this compares to our 2027 target of 65%. So quite close,
and we may say that we have already achieved the target in terms of ROE, at 18%.
Let me now pass to Marcin to guide you through our 4Q results and also more details about the 2025 full
year. Thank you.
Marcin Rulnicki, CFO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon everyone. In the next few slides, we'll share details of our
financial performance, starting with the summary of P&L for Q4 and the whole year.
[slide 10]
As Tomasz already mentioned, a very strong quarter in terms of revenues. You can see that in Q4 alone they
went up 23%, reaching more than PLN 140 million. And the bigger component to this growth was the
financial market, where we still had very high turnover trading in equities, but still a solid 19% growth on the
commodity market, where investors were also very active trading natural gas mainly. In terms of operating
expenses, they reached PLN 96 million in Q4, up by 14.2%. We have dedicated slides, where we present
details. We had also a number of non‑recurring one‑off event transactions. We will explain them later as
well in the following slides, but excluding those non‑recurring transactions, the adjusted EBIT was PLN 45.5
million in Q4, 37% up, and EBITDA was PLN 54.5 million, 31% up. So very, very strong, very good operating
results.
What happened below the operating profit line: share in our associated companies at PLN 10 million - this
is coming mainly from the depository - and net financial income at PLN 4 million, a pretty good level. Net
financial income looks low compared to last year, but we had one‑offs in comparable data. At the end, the
adjusted net profit went up 9% in Q4 and reached PLN 47.3 million. Again, very strong results. We are very,
very happy about this quarter.
[slide 11]
I mentioned non-recurring transactions, one-offs, and here is a short summary of what we did at the end of
2025. So we had still two projects which were not related to our core business. And at the end of 2024, when
we did this review of assets, including non-core assets, these projects were pretty advanced in terms of
developing software platforms, which were the core of them. And we decided to write them off only partially,
and give ourselves a chance to commercialize them during 2025. Unfortunately, these efforts to
commercialize these two were not successful. They were not able to bring the expected results. Eventually,
we decided to write them off entirely at the end of 2025. Together with this write-off, we recognized revenue
from public grants, which would normally be recognized over time corresponding with amortization. Since
we wrote them off entirely, we recognized the full revenue as well. Therefore, the net impact of these nonrecurring transactions was around PLN 9 million negative on operating level and almost PLN 10 million on
net profit.
[slide 12]
Looking at the structure of our revenues, no surprises here. Q4 was basically the continuation of what we
saw in previous quarters. So very strong financial market, mainly due to trading‑related revenue. Trading on
equities was very strong and we saw very strong commodity market where trading in gas was the main driver
of growth. Maybe one thing to mention here is that our structure of revenues in terms of trading and
non‑trading‑related improved towards non‑trading, even though the trading‑related revenues were growing
very fast. This was due to very high revenue from depository activities in Armenia. We will also show it on a
separate slide. It 34.3%. This is the revenue that is not related to trading in the overall revenue or sales of
the Warsaw Stock Exchange consolidated.
[slide 13]
Looking at the trading revenue, the biggest part of our financial market income, as I mentioned before, very
high turnover on equities. As you can see on the right‑hand side of the slide in Q4, it was PLN 114 billion,
41% up year‑over‑year, and in the whole year, we had over PLN 470 billion, 42% higher than the year before.
The record‑high revenues on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The higher turnover was not only due to higher
market cap but also the growing number of transactions. So this is also, I think, which we consider a very
positive one. In other classes of assets, we see the same trends as in previous quarters.
[slide 14]
Considering other components of revenue in the financial markets segment, we have solid growth in
information services, similar to what we saw in previous quarters. So, 7.5% up compared to Q4 ’24; in the
whole year, we have a 9% solid growth rate in information services. Listing‑related revenue is stable, and
the Armenian Stock Exchange — this is the right‑hand side of the slide — shows very high growth both in Q4
and also annually. The reason for this is new rates for services related to deposit activities in Armenia that
have been implemented since July 2025. So in the whole second half of the year, we already benefited from
the high rise and extended scope of services that our company in Armenia can provide.
Let’s move on - now I'll pass to Piotr to comment on revenue on the commodity market.
Piotr Listwoń, CEO of Polish Power Exchange (WSE subsidiary):
[slide 15]
Sure. Thank you very much. The commodity market both in Q4 and throughout the whole of 2025, with the
small exception of the electricity market, experienced a volume I would call a renaissance. During these
periods, we recorded a year‑on‑year and quarter‑on‑quarter volume increase in every segment of our
business lines, achieving quarter‑on‑quarter revenue increase of over 18% and a slightly lower year‑on‑year
increase of over 15%. The total revenues from commodity market trading amounted to PLN 24.7 million in
Q4 and nearly PLN 98 million in the entire year.
The big star of this period was the gas market, of course, where trading volume in Q4 reached almost 60
terawatt hours, increasing by 33% year‑on‑year and over 14% quarter‑on‑quarter. In the entire year 2025,
gas trading volumes amounted to almost 209 terawatt hours and accounted for PLN 24.5 million in
revenues. We also recorded good results in the trading of renewable energy property rights in Q4, recording
nearly a 3% year‑on‑year increase in volumes and a 1.6% increase in 2024, achieving total revenues of PLN
17.7 million.
The electricity trading segments disappointed us a little bit and our market participants throughout 2025,
when we achieved a total trading volume of less than 120 terawatt hours. Unfortunately, that was the lowest
level since 2017 and over 9% lower than the already weak level for our market in 2024. But in Q4 we noticed
a quarter‑on‑quarter increase of over 18% compared to last year, which was the result of the situation on
the forward market, which saw the standard seasonal increase in trading and particularly in liquidity of the
quarterly products.
[slide 16]
When we move to the two other segments of revenues from the commodity markets, as you may see, the
clearing revenues are strongly correlated with the turnover. So we may simplify that increased volumes,
especially in gas markets, had a significant impact on the clearing revenues, which increased year‑on‑year
in Q4 by over 20% and almost 60% year‑on‑year in the whole of 2025, reaching almost PLN 22 million.
Revenues from operations of registers in Q4 were pretty nice, increasing year‑on‑year by almost 18% in
total. It is due to the better performance of operations in certificates of original registry, reaching almost a
30% increase in revenues. Comparing ’25 to ’24, we noticed a slight 7% drop in the revenues due to lower
volumes of certificates issued by the Energy Regulatory Office and lower volumes reported for cancellation
by registered participants.
Marcin Rulnicki, CFO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
[slide 17]
Now back to consolidated numbers. Let's have a look at the operating expenses. In Q4 they were PLN 96
million, 14% up. In the whole year, we had almost 10% growth in operating expenses, and it is mainly driven
by personal costs. Within personal costs, the main reason for higher cost is increasing average
employment. We hired a number of new FTEs, mainly in teams responsible for the IT area. We had to
strengthen this area in the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Also, a certain part of this number comes from variable
salaries. I will show details in a second.
In Q4 we also observed growth in external services, again mainly in the IT area. This was related to seasonal
settlement of projects. Year‑end is usually, let's say, a time when we summarize settled projects in IT. And
we also have slightly higher advisory services. This was also related to the implementation of the new
accounting system that went live in the financial market companies on 1st January 2026. Therefore, Q4 was
a very intensive time. We worked on it. Anyway, despite this slightly higher growth in operating expenses, we
keep the trend of the growth rate of expenses below the growth rate of our revenues. And this is the seventh
quarter in a row that we managed to keep it this way.
[slide 18]
Similarly to Q3, we presented a bridge in which we are trying to explain what part of our operating expenses
growth comes from, let's say, underlying organic growth, and how much comes from unexpected events or
those that exceeded our expectations. And the first main component of those unusual events is the variable
compensation part. The accrual for the variable compensation in 2025 is almost PLN 9 million higher than
the year before. And this is a straight consequence of very good results in the Warsaw Stock Exchange and
also subsidiaries, because variable compensation of our team is very much related to financial
performance.
The second component is our operating costs in Armenia. They increased because of the extension of
services provided by the depository. It is a part of the deal with the Central Bank in Armenia that they allowed
the revaluation of rates and extension of services, but also the condition that our company will invest in the
team and infrastructure used to provide these services. Working the other way are our savings on operating
expenses in non‑core companies. We managed to save PLN 3.8 million in 2025. So when we net it and
deduct it from overall cost growth, the remaining part is PLN 25.2 million, so 7.6% up. And this is what we
consider the organic underlying operating expenses increase in 2025.
[slide 19]
CapEx in Q4 was comparable to Q4 ’24. However, the structure was slightly different. We invested more in
our trading platform development, as you can see in the dark blue part of the bar, and slightly less in other
elements, other components. When you look at the whole year, the investments were almost PLN 75
million, 35% up. It’s not surprising because we communicated during the year that we have certain
investments we should catch up with. And as you can see, especially the technical equipment went up
significantly in 2025, but also intangible assets, and especially the trading platform development costs
which we capitalize on our balance sheet.
[slide 20]
In terms of cash flow and liquidity, again, no surprises here. We had very, very strong cash flow from
operating activities — more than PLN 200 million. Even though our capital expenditures were higher than
the year before, our free cash flow is still growing, so it reached PLN 127 million compared to PLN 91.3
million the year before. Our conversion of results into cash is still very high. Cash flow to EBITDA is almost
90%, and it's comparable to last year, and we end the year with over PLN 380 million net cash on our balance
sheet. So a very, very safe liquidity position. Now I will ask Tomasz to take over and discuss the outlook.
Tomasz Bardzilowski, CEO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
[slide 22]
Thank you, Marcin. Let me now give you some guidance about the trends in 2026. In terms of cash equity
trading, as we said, we had very strong January, February and March. In March, until the end of last week,
we saw trading which was up around 20% on a year‑on‑year basis. However, we point out that we should
expect, all other things being equal, lower year‑on‑year growth due to a high base effect starting from the
second quarter of next year. So in the first quarter of this year, the average daily turnover so far is PLN 2.6
billion versus PLN 1.8 billion a year ago and PLN 2.2 billion in the second quarter.
In terms of the commodity market, we saw strong volume growth in the gas segment in January and
February. However, there was some deceleration in growth in March as a result of the situation in the Middle
East. Electricity had a flat January and then somewhat better, strong volumes in February and March.
In terms of OpEx, this year will be another year with an elevated level of OpEx, especially related to the WATS
system. First, we run two parallel infrastructures for two systems at the same time. Then, following the
planned launch of WATS, which is planned for the middle of this year, we will have a sharp increase in
depreciation expense. And we will also recognize in our P&L a portion of costs previously capitalized. So
this will increase our cost base.
On the other hand, after the launch of WATS, our free cash flow generation should improve because there
will be less CapEx. We expect that some of these increasing costs will be offset by a reduction in the costs
of non‑core subsidiaries. As we are finishing the review of strategic options for non‑core companies, we
would expect that especially in the second half of this year, those costs will be significantly lower, while last
year it was roughly around PLN 10 million negative impact on our bottom line.
In terms of CapEx, it will still be quite high at a level compared to revenues, similar to what you saw last
year. Of course, work on the WATS trading platform continues, as well as further investments in
cybersecurity and development of digital tools. Some small investments are related to AI and to our data
segments. However, starting from 2027, especially after the launch of WATS, you should expect CapEx to
normalize at a level related to revenues seen in previous years.
We are and will be a company with an attractive dividend policy. Our policy assumes a payment of between
60% and 80% of consolidated net profit in dividends, with an ambition to increase the dividend per share.
We will publish our recommendation in terms of a dividend over the next few weeks.
Let me perhaps also make a comment here that, as you know, in our strategy we focus on two pillars in
terms of market development and creating value for our shareholders. I think that still, in terms of market
development, there is a lot to do, and we are quite optimistic that there is a huge potential ahead of the
Polish market. I'm sure that with many of you I’ve discussed it already, and will be happy to discuss it in our
one‑on‑one meetings.
Q&A session:
Łukasz Kucharski, Head of IR Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Thank you very much guys for the presentation. Let's move on to the Q&A session. I see we have a raised
hand from Miguel Dias, the analyst from WOOD. Miguel, the floor is yours.
Miguel Dias, WOOD&Company:
Thanks for taking time to present the results and take my questions. I would like to ask you first on the OKI
accounts. I understand this has been pushed to 2027. So, do you have an estimate that you can share with
us regarding the inflows that you expect in domestic listed products in 2027, 2028 from these accounts?
The second question would be regarding Armenian stock exchange, if we should consider delivery in the
fourth quarter as the run rate for 2026. Also on TGE, how should we think about the recent developments
on the energy markets? Are these a net positive or negative for the commodity exchange? And then finally,
on costs - 2025 came in materially ahead of the guidance that you've provided. 10% year-on-year guidance
is at 4-6% if I'm not mistaken. So, do you still maintain that there has been no front-loading in 2025 vis-a-vis
the strategy, and also, how much can AI help you contain or reduce these costs? And if I understand
correctly, that by the second half of 2026, the non-core subsidiary questions will be given a definite answer.
Thank you.
Tomasz Bardzilowski, CEO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
I can take the first question about the OKI accounts. So for those who don't know what OKI accounts will
be, it's an account for retail investors with a free tax allowance of around of PLN100,000, so around
EUR25,000. And this is modeled after the very successful ISK account in Sweden. So yes, the launch of this
accounts, originally planned for mid of this year has been postponed. But I can share with you that this was
rather as a request of the market participants for them to be ready with the IT segments. And that's why
there was a postponement till the January of next year. And we are very excited about OKI accounts. We
believe it will be a breakthrough also for the Warsaw Stock Exchange, as although you could invest in OKI
accounts in international securities and shares, and bonds with preferential very small tax on the assets
base, this non-tax allowance is only for domestic investor investments and i.e., investments on the Warsaw
Stock Exchange. We feel that this could be a strong driver for our business as well. And we haven't really
shared and published our own forecast, but we can share the forecast from the Finance Ministry. And
Finance Ministry will assume that on annual basis, the inflow to equities and on the Warsaw Stock Exchange
should be around PLN5 billion. We don't see a reason not to argue with those forecasts.
Marcin Rulnicki, CFO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
So, yeah, what we have seen in Armenia in the second half of the year, I think it's run rate to stay in terms of
revenues. I think this is something that is pretty, let's say, recurring. In terms of costs, I think they will be
catching up a bit. The commitment that Armenian Stock Exchange or depository did towards the Central
Bank was that they will be building up resources and infrastructure, and that's not happening overnight. So
it takes a bit of time. So I think they will be catching up with costs. But still, these new activities, these new
services will be provided with reasonable margin.
Łukasz Kucharski, Head of IR Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Marcin, as we have you already, the other question from Miguel was about the OpEx line. It was ahead of
the guidance. So was there any front-loading in 2025 vis-a-vis strategy, and how much AI-related savings
and non-core companies related savings can help with that going forward.
Marcin Rulnicki, CFO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Okay. Yeah. I think in terms of cost there are maybe two things that we should mention here is. One thing is
what we mentioned about variable salaries. So this is like a pure consequence of high results. And that's a
part that is, let's say, kind of automatic. So the better we perform, the high discount will be. Of course, the
performance was above expectations. Therefore, this part of cost was consequently above expectations as
well. I think we can also say that towards the end of the year, especially in the second half of the year, we
also expected that the results will be much better than we originally planned. Therefore, we also, let's say
invested additionally in certain areas which were not planned originally. For example, we spent a bit more
on promoting the capital market in Poland or different activities that are related to, let's say, recognition of
Warsaw Stock Exchange. And we could do this because of good results, but we were not planning them
when we were creating our strategy. So they were not maybe necessary expenses, but we used the
opportunity to boost a little bit these areas because of the good performance of the company.
Tomasz Bardzilowski, CEO of Warsaw Stock Exchange:
Just to share with you. In terms of variable compensation - it's not really this discretionary expense, like
majority of this is basically a formula which links the payments of employees to financial results. We
entered into the highest brackets in this formula, so this is a variable, fully variable expense item. Also, in
terms of what Marcin just said, for example, we had a campaign in social media promoting ETFs, and we
spent some considerable amounts on this campaign towards the year-end. This is a traditional season
when Poles invest in pension schemes to account for some tax reliefs. So that's why this decision to spend
a bit more for ETFs. And as a result, we had this nice volume pick up in ETFs in the first months. We believe
also this played a role here. Also, we had last year we had a promotion on ETFs zero fee in -- for brokers. This
promotion has been ended with year-end.
Łukasz Kucharski, Head of IR Warsaw Stock Exchange:
So additional small tailwind for the revenue. Sure. So, Piotr, maybe if you could tell us a little bit about the
recent geopolitical events and the impact on the TGE business.
Piotr Listwoń, CEO of Polish Power Exchange (WSE subsidiary):
Sure. I understand that the question relates to the situation in the Middle East. So of course, the situation
in respect to LNG supply is, I believe, rather negative on the Polish gas market because of the higher price
of the gas. Customers are rather waiting for the price drop, which caused lower activity on the forward
market. We need to have in mind that the product offered by the the TGE for Polish commodity markets is
always connected with physical delivery. So fluctuation of the commodity price not always generate
additional volumes just in opposition to capital markets and especially financial futures. So in this respect,
on our market, such fluctuation of the price of the gas, which is very important to produce energy in the
Polish energy mix is important. So we see in March that our customers, our members, just a little bit
withhold with the bigger volumes and are less active than they were in the first months and last year.
Łukasz Kucharski, Head of IR Warsaw Stock Exchange:
And if there are no further questions. So thank you, guys, for joining us, and hope to see you all again in May
when we will be presenting the Q1 2026 results. We are to publish 27th of May. And if you would like to meet
with us earlier than that in either Warsaw, London or New York just let us know at [email protected]. Goodbye, and
I guess see you in May.
