Shares jump as Quilter scores return to net inflows

Updating investors on fourth-quarter trading, the former Old Mutual Wealth business said that assets under management were £110.4bn at the year end, a 13% increase on 31 December 2018. Gross sales reached £3.5bn in the final quarter of the year, a 17% improvement, while net client cash flow inflow was £0.5bn.

Paul Feeney, chief executive, said: “2019 was a good year for market performance but a challenging year for net client flows. We are pleased to finish the year in a positive position. Net inflows of £0.3bn for the year represented a sharp turnaround from the net outflow of £0.2bn for the nine months to end September.”

Quilter also confirmed that it will re-platform the Old Mutual adviser platform over the weekend of 22 and 23 February.

Feeney conceded that net flows into the Wealth Solutions arm were subdued ahead of migrating advisors and customers to the new UK platform. “This is turn led to more modest flows into Quilter Investors.”

But he insisted: “Our new UK platform will be transformational for Quilter. It has taken time to get to this point and we are excited about the ability to drive further business growth once we have fully migrated onto the new platform by the end of this summer.”

Ben Williams, analyst at Liberum, said he had expected fourth quarter net flows of -£0.2bn and AUM of £108.4bn.

“We continue to highlight the growth of this sales machine through 2019, and expect the net flows to follow this year and next, once the platform transformation is done,” he added.

Quilter was spun out of Old Mutual in June 2018 and re-focused on two divisions, advice and wealth management, and wealth platforms.

Shares in Quilter were ahead 6% at 170.60p as at 1330 GMT.