Investors deposited £6.1bn into AJ Bell over the last year as customers at the investment platform swelled 14 per cent.
While the results were impressive, they broadly matched expectations from analysts, leaving some disappointed it hadn’t managed to beat them.
“Given the outperformance delivered by both Quilter and IntegraFin during the quarter, we believe that AJ Bell’s in-line performance may be seen as a slight negative,” said Investec analysts Rahim Karim and Jens Ehrenberg.
This was especially meaningful given the company’s strong share price performance, rising by 54 per cent since the start of the year, the analysts said.
Yesterday, AJ Bell competitor Quilter reported £1.4bn in new money over the last three months, bringing its stock price up by five per cent throughout the day.
However, AJ Bell did still see inflows jump by a whopping 45 per cent from last year, bringing total platform assets under management to £86.5bn, above Investec expectations of £85.8bn.
“Our strategy is centred on our dual-channel platform which serves both the advised and direct-to-consumer platform markets using a single technology platform and single operating model,” explained AJ Bell chief executive Michael Summersgill.
“This maximises our growth opportunity within the platform market, whilst being highly efficient to operate.”
While the company did well in the advised market, with customers rising eight per cent to 171,000, the explosive growth continued to happen in its direct-to-consumer space, with 54,000 new customers joining the platform.
The Investec analysts praised the dual-channel operating model, and said they took comfort “that the group continues to demonstrate continued market share gains,” as well as AJ Bell’s managed portfolio service continuing to deliver double digit growth, despite the challenging market backdrop.
“We continue to advance discussions around the creation of a supportive legislative environment for long-term investing through simplification of the ISA system and long-term pension tax stability,” added Summersgill.
“Amidst increased press coverage ahead of the upcoming Budget, we have seen a noticeable change in both customer contributions to pensions and tax-free cash withdrawals.”
“We have therefore made representations to the Treasury calling for a commitment to a pension tax lock in the Budget, guaranteeing stability in key pension tax legislation for at least this parliament.”