Cenkos makes history as it becomes the first UK stockbroker to appoint a female chairman
Lisa Gordon has become the first female chairman of a British stockbroker at Cenkos
Cenkos has become the first stockbroker in the UK to appoint a female chairman. Lisa Gordon, who was the youngest woman to be made director of a listed company when she joined the media firm Chrysalis in 1994 at the age of 28, is joining Cenkos as it finally attempts to turn a corner under new leadership.
The smaller-companies broker, which suffered a dire first six months of 2019, told investors that a strong second half had pulled it back to a profit for the year as a whole. This meant it has held on to its unbroken 15-year track record of full-year profitability.
During the latter six months of 2019, Cenkos said it had completed a number of ‘significant’ fundraisings for its stock market-listed clients. And it said that the momentum was continuing into the New Year. As a result, it is now expecting to announce a final dividend when it releases its full-year 2019 results in March.
Jim Durkin, Cenkos’s newly-returned chief executive, said: ‘With levels of new issues and initial public offerings for growth companies being at an unprecedented low in 2019, it is testament 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.’
Durkin returned to Cenkos, the company which he helped build, after former Bank of England economist Anthony Hotson left in 2018 following a 90 per cent plunge in profits.
Insiders said the company’s mojo had slipped under Hotson’s leadership, while it also fell foul of City chatter for its close relationship with fallen fund manager Neil Woodford.