Stockbroker lands £1.6bn worth of new business in first three months of the year

Stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown attracted £1.6bn worth of new business in the first three months of the year and managed a record £149.7bn worth of assets.

The Bristol firm attracted 34,000 new clients in the period, up 48 per cent year on year, taking us to 1,858,000 active clients.

Revenue for the period was £199.7m an increase of 6%,

Chief executive Dan Olley said he was delighted with the performance of the business.

In recent years co-founder Peter Hargreaves has slammed the board and called for major cost-cutting across the business.

Dan Olley said: “On joining the business, one of the highest priorities I set was to recapture our service excellence, so I am delighted that we delivered a great service experience for our clients over tax year end despite receiving record volumes in calls and emails.

“Our relentless focus on client service, making it easy to save and invest to ensure that we meet our clients’ needs has delivered clear results this quarter.

“ We built good momentum into tax year end, and as a result have seen year-on-year increases of gross inflows and share dealing volumes in the quarter and net new business on a par with last year.”

He added: “We welcomed 34,000 net new clients in the quarter, reflecting the increasing popularity of our newer products such as ready-made pensions, our cash ISA offerings and Active Savings.

“A record number of clients contributed to their pensions in the tax year, with the average amount subscribed up by 22% and 270,000 of our clients now have an Active Savings account, resulting in Active Savings reaching the significant milestone of £10bn in AUA since the end of the quarter.”

Share dealing volumes averaged 794,000 per month in the quarter (Q3 2023: 770,000) and an increase in volumes seen since the first half of the year, with overseas deal volumes representing 23.6% of total deals in the quarter (Q3 2023: 16.8%).

Total revenue in the quarter of £199.7m with benefits from increased dealing volumes and higher platform revenue from higher AUA levels, more than offsetting the year on year reduction in revenue on cash from lower NIM and cash balances.

Olley added: “Looking ahead to the remainder of the financial year, we are pleased to see momentum continue into April as clients take advantage of the benefits of investing at the start of the tax year.

“We continue to make good progress against our priorities for the year – improving our client proposition, controlling our costs and increasing our execution pace so that we can capitalise on the significant growth opportunities that lie ahead and create value for all our stakeholders.”