St. James’s Place plc (LON:SJP), the wealth management group, today issues its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2018:
Financial highlights
· EEV new business profit £852.7 million (2017: £779.8 million) – up 9%
· EEV operating profit £1,002.0 million (2017: £918.5 million) – up 9%
· IFRS profit before shareholder tax £211.9 million (2017: £186.1 million) – up 14%
· Underlying cash result £309.0 million (2017: £281.2 million) – up 10%
· Underlying cash earnings per share of 58.7 pence (2017: 53.6 pence per share) – up 10%
Dividend
· Final dividend of 29.73 pence per share (2017: 27.45 pence per share); full year dividend of 48.22 pence per share (2017: 42.86 pence per share), growth of 12.5%
Other highlights
· Gross inflows of £15.7 billion (2017: £14.6 billion)
· Net inflow of funds under management of £10.3 billion (2017: £9.5 billion)
· Funds under management of £95.6 billion (2017: £90.7 billion)
· We are now represented by 3,954 qualified advisers across the Partnership
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Andrew Croft, Chief Executive Officer, commented:
“I am pleased to report a good set of results for 2018, building on an exceptional outcome in 2017 and despite a difficult external environment in the last quarter of the year. This demonstrates once again the resilience of our business.
The financial performance of the business reflects the progression of funds under management together with the contribution of new inflows in the year, resulting in good growth across all our key financial metrics. The Board proposes a final dividend of 29.73 pence per share, making for a full year dividend of 48.22 pence per share, growth of 12.5%, marginally above the growth of the underlying cash result in recognition of the very strong strategic progress during the year.
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 £102 billion. 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% of the first quarter’s flows.
Irrespective of these external factors, the fundamentals of our clients’ financial planning requirements remain unchanged. With a continued focus on achieving the best possible outcomes for our clients through the provision of trusted face-to-face financial advice and our distinctive investment management approach, together with the continued growth in the size of the St. James’s Place Partnership, we remain extremely well placed to continue to grow our business.”
