It would be surprising if Icap had not hedged ahead of any surprise change in the value of sterling in the light of the EU referendum vote. Its business model, after all, enables banks and institutions to take out derivatives and other instruments to prevent them from being caught out by abrupt movements on money and foreign exchange markets.
In the event, the broker was largely protecting itself against a higher pound and the currency went the other way. Icap gets 73 per cent of its revenues in dollars and 14 per cent in euros. The lower pound will have an immediate effect on profits translated from those currencies, but the hedging will limit this in the current financial year to the end of March.