Stockbroker suffers £300k loss
STOCKBROKER and wealth manager WH Ireland has suffered a pre-tax loss as a regulatory fine wiped out its profits.
It reported a pretax loss of £300,000 for the 12 months to the end of November, compared with a profit of £500,000 the previous year.
Last week the firm was fined £1.2m and banned from taking on any new corporate broking clients for 72 days after a probe by the City watchdog.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said the firm, which has a large Manchester office on John Dalton Street – which was its corporate headquarters for many years – had breached a number of serious compliance-related rules during 2013.
An investigation by the FCA found that between January 1 and June 19, Ireland failed to ensure it had the proper systems and controls in place to prevent market abuse being detected or occurring.
During the period WH Ireland exited from seven regional office locations whilst opening two, in Milton Keynes and the Isle of Man.
Assets under management within its private wealth division rose by 2% to £2.5bn over the year, while discretionary assets under management rose 6% to £767m.
Management fee income rose 32% to £6.5m and commission fee income fell 3% to £11m.
Chief executive Richard Killingbeck, said: “Many of the structural changes at the company to which I have referred in the past have begun to improve the 2015 financial performance of W H Ireland. We still have a lot more to do but these are encouraging figures.
“Looking ahead, our target remains to reach a 50% level of recurring revenue across the group (compared with 36% in 2015).
“A lot of the work and success achieved during this past year should result in a further increase in this figure during 2016 towards our target, and as in past years I hope to be able to report that both divisions have contributed to this growth.”
