Early trading sees AJ Bell shares soar by more than a third

Initial trading in AJ Bell shares saw the value of the company soar by more than a third this morning, at one point adding in excess of £250m to its valuation.

The Manchester-based investment platform announced its flotation offer price of 160p per share, which valued the company at £651m.

But in early conditional trading the shares reached a high of 225.77p per share, taking the value to more than £900m.

By lunchtime they had settled back around the 219p per share mark.

Richard Parfect, fund manager at Seneca Investment Managers, said: “We’re pleased that AJ Bell has reached this stage in its evolution.

“We look forward to continuing to play a part in the growth of AJ Bell and are delighted that one of our funds’ earliest investments has been such a material benefit to our investors.

“Well structured, easy to use, and fairly priced platforms have a compelling place to enable customers to manage their savings portfolios.

“A market listing should help raise the profile of the platform and it’s feasible that others will follow.”

The company’s staff are set to make £2m between the 750 of them as a result of the listing.