Ifg Regulatory News (IFP)

18th November 2015

IFG Group plc - Interim Management Statement

STRATEGIC FOCUS CONTINUING TO DELIVER GROWTH AND PERFORMANCE

IFG Group plc is a focused financial services group with full market listings in London and Dublin. The Group provides distinctive financial solutions through its subsidiaries, James Hay Partnership and Saunderson House. James Hay is a market leading UK retirement wealth planning platform provider and Saunderson House is a market leading and award winning independent financial adviser.

IFG Group is pleased to issue the following update covering its business from January to October 2015.

Highlights:

· The Group continues to perform in line with expectations and remains on track to deliver meaningful growth in profitability compared to 2014

· Total Assets under Advice and Administration has increased to £22.9bn, up 7% since 30 June 2015 and up 14% since the beginning of 2015

· James Hay has delivered continued growth in new activity, adding more than 11,000 new clients in the 10 months to October 31st, double the 5,500 added in the same period in 2014. Attrition has remained at 6% (annualised) for the period to October. The completion of the Towry and Capita transactions has contributed significantly to the growth since June

· Assets under administration in James Hay increased to £18.9bn (December 2014 - £16.4bn), with net inflows of £1.6bn in Q3, being the highest recorded across all UK Platform businesses (as reported by Fundscape), again helped by the transactions

· Saunderson House continues to grow and now serves 1,800 clients, up 13% from 1,600 in October 2014, attracting 223 new clients year to date and with attrition remaining at de-minimis levels

· Saunderson House Assets under advice are now £4bn, up from £3.7bn in December 2014

· The previously announced sale of the Irish General Insurance business is expected to complete before year-end, subject only to regulatory approval

· The interim dividend of 1.44 pence per share will be paid on 4 December 2015

Paul McNamara, Group Chief Executive, commented:

 "We continue to see the benefits of our more sharply focused strategy and remain on track to deliver growth in clients, assets, revenues and profits in 2015. We are well positioned with two profitable businesses, each serving clients with distinctive propositions in attractive segments of the market. We have a strong and liquid balance sheet to support continued growth and investment as we look forward to 2016."

James Hay Partnership:

James Hay provides a full platform for retirement wealth planning, underpinned by a specialist capability in pension administration. James Hay administers self-directed pension schemes for more than 55,000 clients, in addition to offering ISAs and general investment accounts in the Modular iPlan ("MiPlan"). It now has more than £18.9bn in assets under administration (December 2014 - £16.4bn), with net inflows of £2.3bn in the 10-month period to October 2015.

James Hay has maintained its new business momentum and client retention, with new SIPPs added in the period to the end of October totalling over 11,000 (Full Year 2014 - 6,300). The majority of new business, both organic and acquisition related, is in our MiPlan product, which has attracted new business due to its transparent pricing and flexibility.

As previously stated, our investment spend in James Hay peaked in H1 2015, and H2 has seen the benefits of increased revenue from announced deals with Capita and Towry, together with reduced capital spend.

James Hay offers full flexibility for clients following the pension changes in April. Experience to date is that customer behaviour has not changed materially in aggregate and the rate of attrition remains unchanged at 6% on an annualised basis.

We see our focus in developing key strategic partnerships with major distributors playing an important role in continuing to grow our client and asset base, both in our core pension product and in the ISA and General Investment Account products.

Saunderson House:

Saunderson House offers award winning financial planning and investment advice with assets under advice of £4.0bn (December 2014 - £3.7bn). It provides holistic financial and investment planning to high net-worth individuals and an investment proposition based on macroeconomic research, rigorous due diligence of fund managers and active asset allocation, with an emphasis on transparency of process. This investment approach continues to deliver transparent and robust investment performance to clients.

Saunderson House has continued to attract new clients, whilst attrition remains at de-minimus levels. In the period from January to October 2015 we have added 223 new clients (247 for all of 2014), and now have 1,800 clients (October 2014 - 1,600).

Income and assets per clients remain broadly in line with 2014, and revenues are, as a result materially ahead of the previous year. Profits are marginally ahead of last year, despite increased investment in adviser capacity and business development and also the impact of the increased FSCS compensation levy (fully expensed in H1 2015 and not recurring in H2).

We continue to invest in the technology capabilities of the business, including a new client portal and the roll out of a discretionary investment service for appropriate clients.

Investor and analyst enquiries should be directed to:

Paul McNamara John Cotter

Group Chief Executive Group Finance Director

Tel: 00 353 1 632 4800 Tel: 00 353 1 632 4800