(Alliance News) - Hargreaves Lansdown saw a rise in new business and clients in its financial first quarter, the fund supermarket said Thursday.
The firm reported net new business of GBP1.7 billion in the three months to September 30, with net new clients of 35,000. Assets under administration at the period-end totalled GBP101.8 billion, up 3% on the June 30 figure.
Net figure for the quarter amounted to GBP128.1 million, up 6% year-on-year.
"I'm pleased to report a solid start to our financial year for client, net new business and revenue growth. We continue to focus on our strategy of delivering excellent service, information and value during these continued uncertain times for our clients," said Chief Executive Chris Hill.
Back in June, Hill "expressed his regret" for the "distress, uncertainty and inconvenience" caused by fund manager Neil Woodford freezing redemptions from his funds, which had been included in the Hargreaves Wealth 50 list.
Hill made no further comment on Woodford in his statement Thursday.
Here is what you need to know at the London market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: called 2.1 points higher at 7,168.60
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Hang Seng: up 0.4% at 25,773.18
Nikkei 225: closed up 0.5% at 21,551.98
DJIA: closed up 181.97 points , 0.7%, at 26,346.01
S&P 500: closed up 0.9% at 2,919.40
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GBP: flat at USD1.2221 (USD1.2222)
EUR: flat at USD1.0989 (USD1.0982)
Gold: soft at USD1,505.87 per ounce (USD1,507.45)
Oil (Brent): soft at USD58.24 a barrel (USD58.54)
(changes since previous London equities close)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Thursday's Key Economic Events still to come
0830 BST UK Halifax house price index
0930 BST UK indices of production and services
0930 BST UK trade
0930 BST UK monthly gross domestic product estimates
1100 BST Ireland consumer price index
1230 BST UK NIESR monthly GDP Tracker
0830 EDT US initial jobless claims
0830 EDT US real earnings
0830 EDT US CPI
0945 EDT US EIA weekly natural gas storage report
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Extinction Rebellion activists are to begin their three-day "Hong Kong-style" occupation of London City Airport. The protest group says its members intend to "peacefully occupy and shut down" the airport's terminal building from 9 am on Thursday. Activists say they will achieve this by lying, sitting or gluing themselves in front of the departure and arrival gates at the east London airport. If they do not make it into the building, they plan to occupy the airport's access road and DLR station.
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American central bankers have grown more fearful, saying a global slowdown and US President Donald Trump's trade wars could drag down hiring and the broader economy with it, meeting minutes showed Wednesday. While the outlook remains good for the moment – with strong jobs markets, historically low unemployment and the general public continuing to loosen purse strings – weaker recent economic data have put clouds on the horizon, the minutes from the Federal Reserve's September 17-18 policy meeting showed. "Participants generally had become more concerned about risks associated with trade tensions and adverse developments in the geopolitical and global economic spheres," according to the minutes. Several noted that models gauging recession probabilities had "increased notably in recent months".
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US and Chinese trade delegations are due to meet Thursday in Washington for talks aimed at ending an impasse in US-China negotiations. The Chinese delegation headed by Vice Premier Liu He will meet with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a renewed attempt to end a trade war that threatens global economic growth. Topics include forced technology transfer, intellectual property rights, non-tariff barriers, agriculture and enforcement, the White House said earlier this week.
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Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden said for the first time that Trump should be impeached, arguing that the US president has "betrayed this nation" and violated his oath of office. "To preserve our Constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity, he should be impeached," Biden, the former vice president whom Trump has repeatedly accused without evidence of corruption, told supporters at a rally in New Hampshire. "He's shooting holes in the Constitution, and we can not let him get away with it," added Biden, one of the favourites to take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
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Turkey has launched a broad assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria, with intensive bombardment followed by a ground offensive made possible by the withdrawal of US troops. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Wednesday the start of the attack on Twitter and soon after jets and artillery targeted Kurdish positions along the full width of the border, sending thousands of civilians fleeing their homes. That was followed late in the evening by the beginning of a ground operation, the Turkish defence ministry said. Trump warned that if the Turkish operation was not conducted "in as humane a way as possible", he would "wipe out" the country's economy". The assault had seemed inevitable since he announced on Sunday a US military pullback from the border, but the attack triggered international condemnation and an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was set for Thursday.
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EU Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said he was "confident and hopeful" that eurozone finance ministers can arrive at an agreement for shared budgetary instruments at a Luxembourg meeting where negotiations ran late into Wednesday night. The proposal for a eurozone budget - which focusses on competition and convergence and aims to protect the currency bloc from financial shocks - would not be "the end of the story" but would be a "good signal," he said before the start of talks. The outcome of eurogroup talks is to be announced early Thursday, before discussions turn to the EU's anti-money laundering blacklist among other topic. The second day of talks is to involve all EU member state finance ministers, rather than just those in the currency bloc.
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Rugby World Cup organisers took the unprecedented step Thursday of cancelling two games – England v France and New Zealand v Italy – as Japan braces for Super Typhoon Hagibis, likely the biggest storm to hit the country this year. Both games were in the projected path of the large and powerful typhoon, which currently has a "violent" rating – the highest category by Japan's weather bureau – and is due to hit the Tokyo area on Saturday. Hagibis, packing maximum gusts of up to 270 kilometres (168 miles) per hour, is currently projected to batter the Tokyo and Yokohama area on Saturday.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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HSBC RAISES RIO TINTO TO 'BUY' (HOLD) - PRICE TARGET 4850 (5050) PENCE
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PANMURE CUTS SIG TO 'HOLD' ('BUY') - TARGET 100 (180) PENCE
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BARCLAYS RAISES PENNON TO 'OVERWEIGHT' (EQUAL WEIGHT) - TARGET 1000 (825) PENCE
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BARCLAYS CUTS FERREXPO TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' (EQUAL WEIGHT) - TARGET 110 (245) PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Automotive distributor Inchcape said it has sold its Fleet Solutions business to Toyota Fleet Mobility for GBP100 million. Inchcape said the sale will result in a gain on disposal. The assets of the business had been held on the Inchcape balance sheet at GBP78 million. This follows recent disposals of "less productive" dealerships in the UK, and retail sales in Australia and China. Inchcape is focused on its core Distribution operations, the firm said, and these disposals have "meaningfully streamlined" the group in this direction. The Fleet Solutions business leases fleet vehicles and provides fleet management services to B2B customers, including Toyota. The scope of the business means there is limited synergy with Inchcape's UK retail dealership business, the firm explained. The transaction is expected to complete in the fourth quarter of the year and the impact on Inchcape's 2019 trading profit will be "minimal".
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Home furnishings retailer Dunelm said trading was strong at the start of its first quarter, but conditions softened in September. Like-for-like sales increased 6.4% in the first quarter, or the 13 weeks to September 28. Like-for-like store sales were up 2.9%, and online sales surged 35%. Total sales were up 7.5%, benefiting from new stores. The beginning of the quarter was particularly strong, the firm said, reflecting continued market share gains and a weak comparative period last year. In September trading was mixed amid a softer homewares market. Despite this recent market softness and increased political uncertainty, Dunelm backed its annual outlook. "We are pleased with our performance in the first quarter, building on the strong growth delivered over the last year. Our customers continue to respond well to our specialist product and service offering and we are excited by the numerous opportunities ahead of us," said Chief Executive Nick Wilkinson.
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Sabre Insurance said gross written premiums were down in the first nine months of the year, as expected. Sabre said gross written premiums were GBP152.9 million for the nine months to September, down from GBP162.6 million a year ago. Full-year premiums are expected to be 7% lower than 2018, in line with previous guidance. Meanwhile, Sabre expects to deliver a combined ratio in 2019 slightly above its "mid-70%'s" target. "Our performance so far in this financial year has been in line with our expectations, and we remain confident that we will deliver a combined ratio slightly below our long-term target and an attractive dividend for the full year," said Chief Executive Geoff Carter.
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COMPANIES - OTHER MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Retailer N Brown Group swung to an interim profit despite revenue dipping. Revenue in the half-year to August 31 was down 5.4% to GBP432.9 million, though N Brown swung to a pretax profit of GBP18.8 million from a GBP27.1 million loss a year ago. This was mainly because the firm booked a GBP65.4 million in exceptional costs a year ago, versus just GBP25.0 million in the recently ended period. The Simply Be owner kept its dividend flat at 2.83p per share. "The retail environment remains heavily promotional, but we are concentrating on continuing to improve our customer proposition and ensuring we operate as efficiently as possible, which has led to an increase of 4% in adjusted Ebitda for the period. We remain focussed on implementing our plans and the board's full year expectations are unchanged," said Chief Executive Steve Johnson.
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Apple removed an app from its store on Thursday that allowed Hong Kong protesters to track police movements, the day after Chinese state media accused the American tech giant of supporting demonstrations. The police tracking app HKMap.Live said on Twitter that it had been pulled from the Hong Kong Apple store around 11 am Hong Kong time. The app had been available for download a short time earlier. The "app has been used in ways that endanger law enforcement and residents in Hong Kong," the developer cited Apple as saying on Twitter.
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AT&T's decision to divest its wireless and wireline operations in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands is a "credit positive" measure, Moody's Investors Service said. The USD1.95 billion sale will not impact the telecommunication firm's Baa2 credit rating however, Moody's added. The ratings agency expects the proceeds to go towards paying the company's debt, "which is a stated top priority" for AT&T's management in 2019.
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Dutch industrial conglomerate Royal Philips said it expects third-quarter revenue and profit to have been improved on the year prior, though margins were under pressure amid headwinds within its Connected Care division. For the three months ended September, adjusted earnings before interest, taxes & amortisation are expected to widen 2.6% to EUR583 million from the EUR568 million reported the year prior. This was after total sales are expected to jump 9.0% to EUR4.7 billion from EUR4.31 billion the year before. On a comparable basis, sales growth was 6% on the year prior after all businesses delivered growth.
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Thursday's Shareholder Meetings
Hargreaves Lansdown
Vectura Group (re special dividend)
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com
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