Record year for Hargreaves Lansdown

1st Sep 2010 07:12

Wealth management firm Hargreaves Lansdown has had a record year despite tough market conditions, lifting profits by 18%.Profit before tax jumped to £86.3m in the year ended 30 June, up from £73.1m 12 months ago, on revenue 20% higher at £159m. Total assets under administration rose 47% to £17.5bn.The number of clients choosing its Vantage platform rose 48,000 to 330,000 and net business inflows were up 65% on the year before at £3.3bn."Revenue, profits and earnings per share have achieved record levels and although these measures have been helped by a rise in stock markets across the year, the more significant contribution has been from record organic growth," said Peter Hargreaves, chief executive and co-founder who's stepping down in the autumn."I suspect the problems that we can foresee at the moment are less critical than the ones we envisaged a year ago."The final dividend of 0.58p a share takes the total payout to 8.58p, but a special dividend of 1.7p lifts the overall dividend for the period 18% to 11.88p.