Walker Crips increases funds under management

Private client broker Walker Crips Group has increased its funds under management from £383m to £630m over the past year. The growth came from a combination of investment performance and new money. Higher performance-related staff costs and the costs of additional trading held back the profitability of the business. Revenues increased from £15.86m to £17.64m in the year to March 2010 with most of that improvement coming from broking commissions. Pre-tax profit increased 39% to £1.52m. Net cash is £5.58m. The final dividend has been increased from 1.6p a share to 1.7p a share. The total dividend increased the same amount to 2.64p a share. Management says that it is seeing confidence return to the markets but there is still uncertainty.