Hargreaves Lansdown shares soar as firm secures new clients amid leadership speculation
Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown recorded a six per cent increase in net new business over the past three months as clients sought to lock in deals at the end of the tax year.
In the three months to June, the Bristol-based DIY investing outfit saw £1.7bn of net new business, despite the market more broadly seeing outflows.
Shares in Hargreaves Lansdown were trading over seven per cent higher on Wednesday afternoon.
Chief executive Chris Hill said that much of the increase stemmed from clients seeking to find the best deals at the end of the tax year, which ends in April.
He said: “The tax year end season remains a critical time for our clients and this year we focused on supporting them to navigate the changes to the tax landscape, making the most of their allowances and delivering further value to our overall client proposition.”
Hargreaves Lansdown pointed out that customers were making the most of their ISA and SIPP tax allowances in the final days of the 2023 tax year and the start of the new year.
This helped its assets under administration rise two per cent in the quarter to £134bn, with net client growth of 13,000.
Analysts at Peel Hunt praised the “strong flows through difficult markets” while Neil Shah, director at Edison Group, said the results were “the best that Hargreaves Lansdown can currently hope for” given the “anaemic investment environment”.
However, the firm also noted the continued trend from last year where “specific cohorts of clients” were making cash withdrawals to fund cost of living.
The volume of shares traded was also 11 per cent lower than the previous quarter as investor confidence was hit by rising interest rates and market volatility.
The trading update comes amid changes to the Hargreaves Lansdown’s senior management. On Monday, Deanna Oppenheimer, who had overseen the firm since 2018, signalled her intention to step down.
It followed a series of spats between Hargreaves Lansdown’s founder Peter Hargreaves, who still owns some 20 per cent of the firm, and the current management over the direction of the company.
Hargreaves has labelled Oppenheimer’s time at the top a “disaster” and has slammed the strategy pursued by chief Chris Hill.