St James's Place delivers record FY financials

Investment manager St James's Place said on Tuesday that it had delivered record financial results in 2022, with pre-tax profits and net asset values both rising.

St James's Place stated IFRS pre-tax profits had risen from £353.8m in 2021 to £501.8m twelve months later, while its EEV net asset values increased from £16.57 per share a year ago to £16.66 per share.

The FTSE 100-listed firm proposed a full-year dividend of 52.78p per share, in line with its 70% target pay-out ratio and up from 51.96p in the prior year.

Gross inflows slipped from £18.2bn to £17.0bn, funds under management dropped from £154.0bn to £148.4bn, and net inflows of FUM declined from £11.0bn to £9.8bn.

Chief executive Andrew Croft said: "After a year when the external environment proved favourable to many businesses in our industry, 2022 presented a more challenging backdrop as UK consumers faced the reality of sharply rising inflation, macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, and investment market volatility. Despite this, we achieved the second-best year for new business flows in our history as our advisers performed admirably in helping clients feel confident in their finances and remain on track for the future.

"2023 has continued in much the same way that 2022 ended, but we remain encouraged to see indicators that UK inflation may have peaked and that there are some signs of optimism for the direction of economies and investment markets worldwide. As we stated in our new business update in January, a sustained recovery in such indicators would naturally be conducive towards improving consumer sentiment, activity levels and of course funds under management, as 2023 unfolds."

As of 1020 GMT, St James's Place shares were up 2.63% at 1,269.50p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com