AJ Bell investors dodge market turmoil as assets swell
AJ Bell investors managed to dodge the market turmoil that plagued the first quarter of the year, bringing the platform’s assets up to a record £96.2bn.
The direct-to-consumer platform has been the only large investment firm so far during quarterly results season to report that assets under management had risen over the first three months of 2025, it revealed in a trading update.
While investors at AJ Bell did lose £900m on market performance throughout the quarter, this was substantially below the losses at competitors – even those much smaller in size.
St James’s Place, which is roughly twice the size of AJ Bell by assets, saw investors lose £3.3bn during the quarter, while Polar Capital, at a fifth of the size of AJ Bell, lost £2.4bn.
Retail investors have clearly managed to avoid the worst of the market crash, as the firm’s direct-to-consumer arm of the firm lost only £400m on market performance, while AJ Bell’s advised platform lost £600m on the market.
Meanwhile, investors poured £1.8bn into the platform over the first three months of the year, overwhelmingly into its direct-to-consumer business.
This compares to £1.4bn added by investors in the last quarter of 2024, and £1.6bn in the first quarter of last year.
During the first three months of the year, the number of customers using AJ Bell increased by 34,000, almost entirely due to the popularity of the firm’s direct-to-consumer platform.
“Since the quarter end, global trade tariffs and broader macroeconomic uncertainty have created significant market volatility,” noted AJ Bell CEO Michael Summersgill.
This has led to increased trading on the firm’s platform, with more than three-quarters of these trades being buys, totalling more than £300m, he said.
AJ Bell and ISA reform
Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced as part of the government’s Spring Statement that it was looking at options to reform ISAs, with a focus on promoting a culture of retail investment in the UK.
While no further details were given on what reforms will be considered, reports ahead of the event had suggested Reeves was in talks to cut the limit on annual deposits into a Cash ISA from £20,000 to £4,000.
AJ Bell has been campaigning strongly for reform to the ISA regime, and described the announcement in the trading update as an “encouraging step”.
“We believe a powerful combination of straightforward reforms, centred on implementing Targeted Support and simplifying cash and stocks and shares ISAs into a single product, would significantly reduce the barriers between saving and long-term investing,” said Summersgill.