St James’s Place funds under management hit £102bn
St James’s Place has announced that its funds under management have exceeded £100bn in 2019, as the wealth manager posted its full-year results this morning.
The figures
Funds under management in 2018 hit £95.6bn, however the value has since reached £102bn, the wealth management group announced this morning.
Net inflows last year were £10.3bn, up from £9.5bn in 2017 and operating profit increased by nine per cent to £1bn.
The group will issue a full year dividend of 48.22p per share, an increase of 12.5 per cent from the previous year.
Why it's interesting
The wealth management firm has managed to weather Brexit uncertainty to maintain strong fund flows, which analysts have said is one of its “unique selling points”.
What the company said
St James’s Place chief executive Andrew Croft said: “It is pleasing to see a recovery in the global stock markets at the start of 2019 which, together with on-going net inflows during January and February have, at the time of writing, taken our funds under management to some £102bn.
“The business continues to perform well relative to the industry.
“However, challenging external factors, like those currently being experienced are not in our control and the pace of fund flows has moderated compared with last year.
“I would note though that the inflows for the same period last year represent a very strong comparative and March typically accounts for around 50 per cent of the first quarter’s flows.”
What analysts said
Paul De’Ath, analyst at Shore Capital Markets, said: “It is a measure of the strength of the business that the full year results reported this morning were only marginally ahead of consensus expectations despite delivering 10 per cent growth in underlying cash and over 12 per cent growth in the dividend for the year. The expectations are always set high for STJ and it continues to deliver.”
He added: “Consistently strong fund flows, no matter the financial, political or economic situation is one of STJ’s unique selling points and this will no doubt come as a surprise even given the unprecedented level of uncertainty caused by Brexit. “