AJ Bell profits rise as platform customers reach milestone

Investment platform AJ Bell hiked its dividend on Thursday as it hailed a "very strong" interim performance, posting a jump in profits and revenue as platform customers reached a milestone.

In the six months to the end of March, pre-tax profit rose 47% to £61.4m on revenue of £131.3m, up 27% on the same period a year earlier.

The company declared an interim dividend of 4.25p a share, up 21% on the same period a year earlier.

Chief executive Michael Summersgill said: "I am pleased to announce an excellent set of first-half results. Our dual-channel platform continued to deliver strong organic growth with 27,000 customers added in the period and total platform customers surpassing half a million, a significant milestone for the business.

"We attracted platform net inflows of £2.9 billion, up 45% versus the prior year, to take closing platform AUA to a record £80.3 billion. This growth in customers and AUA drove very strong financial performance, with both revenue and profit before tax up significantly."

At 0815 BST, the shares were up 9.4% at 396.50p. However, the surge was likely also due to the fact that Hargreaves Lansdown announced earlier that it had rejected a 985p per share takeover offer from a consortium comprising CVC, Nordic Capital and Platinum Ivy, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. HL shares were up 16%.