Brewin Dolphin’s first-half profit rose sharply as the fund manager attracted more funds from clients while markets recovered.
Pre-tax profit before adjusted items such as acquisition costs increased 28.8% to £47m from a year earlier in the six months to the end of March as income rose 13.7% to £199.9m. Statutory pre-tax profit rose 44.3% to £40.7m.
Brewin Dolphin increased its interim dividend by 5% to 4.6p a share and said it was confident about the outlook.
Total funds rose 10.5% to £52.6bn as clients placed more money with Brewin Dolphin and investments rose and stock markets recovered from the crisis. Brewin Dolphin said its discretionary investment performance was 9.5% compared with 8.7% for the wider industry.
The company had record discretionary fund inflows of £1bn in the second quarter and client retention improved to 98% in the first half from 97% for all of 2020.
Markets have boomed as vaccination programmes have increased confidence about the global economic recovery. Households have also put savings built during the pandemic to use in the stock market with interest rates at record lows.
Robin Beer, Brewin Dolphin’s chief executive, said: “In the first half of 2021 we delivered an excellent set of results driven by record fund inflows in Q2 and the outperformance of our clients’ investments during a strong market recovery. Our strong financial momentum and the good progress made on our strategic priorities in the first half of the year gives me confidence for the remainder of the year.”
Brewin Dolphin shares fell 1.4% to 323.47p at 0901 BST.
