The world’s largest inter-dealer money broker, ICAP has announced a 29% increase in pre-tax profits of £255m, prompting a bumper £1.2m bonus for its financial director Matthew Lester.

Lester saw his take home pay rocket to £1.46m, compared with last year’s salary of £694,401.

The UK based dealer’s earnings per share also increase substantially by 27% for year ended 31st March 2008 to 24.5p compared with 19.3p in 2007.

‘In the year end ICAP outperformed the FTSE100 by 17%. The total shareholder
return for ICAP’s shareholders during the year was 10%. Our business is highly cash generative and this year free cash flow grew to £231.7m, an increase of £41.6m over 2007,' said chairman, Charles Gregson.