NUC.L Regulatory News (NUC)

19 November 2018

Nucleus Financial Group Plc

("Nucleus" or the "Company")

Unbundling of outsourced technology and BPO services through new platform agreement

In line with the technology strategy set out in the Company's admission document, Nucleus (AIM: NUC), a leading independent wrap platform provider, announces that it has executed a long-term agreement with Bravura Solutions (UK) Ltd ("Bravura") to provide direct access to its Sonata application, the core system underpinning the Nucleus wrap platform. This new agreement, coupled with recent recruitment in key areas of its technology team, will enhance the Company's control over the platform technology and enable Nucleus to accelerate the rate of product development for the benefit of its users. The board believes this will assist the Company in driving future inflows and AUA growth.

Access to the Sonata application has, to date, been provided through an outsourcing agreement with OpenWealth (a trading name of Genpact WM Limited). As part of an amended agreement, OpenWealth will continue to provide Nucleus with BPO services including account servicing and administration.

The new agreement with Bravura will see Nucleus have a direct contractual relationship with Bravura for the Bravura Sonata application and associated change management services. A new dedicated team has been set up internally with additional resources to ensure a seamless transition. The aggregate cost structure of the agreements with Bravura and OpenWealth is consistent with Company's previous arrangements, is expected to be broadly cost neutral to the business and will strengthen the technology foundations.

Andrew Smith, chief technology officer of Nucleus, said: "We are excited to be working directly with Bravura after working with them indirectly for such a long period. This new arrangement is of vital importance to the ongoing process and pace of development at Nucleus as we prepare the business for significant scale in our second decade in business. By working with Bravura directly, we believe we will be able to better deliver regular platform updates that will substantially improve propositional and regulatory change for the benefit of our users and their clients."

David Ferguson, founder and chief executive of Nucleus, said: "We expect the long-planned unbundling of the current outsourced technology and BPO services and direct relationship with Bravura to materially strengthen our technology foundations and create optionality in our future organisational design and ultimately support our plans to deliver further margin expansion. Nucleus has grown strongly in the last few years and we expect this development to allow us to accelerate the pace of change to allow us to build on the assured progress of recent years."

Tony Klim, group CEO of Bravura, said: "We have been working with Nucleus since it launched and we are pleased to see the relationship develop to this point. Sonata enables Nucleus to connect and engage with their clients anytime, anywhere, using their choice of device. We hope that by working directly with us, Nucleus will be able to develop their technology further to benefit its users positively."

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For further information please contact:

Nucleus

David Ferguson, CEO Tel: +44 (0)13 1226 9800

Stuart Geard, Chief Financial Officer 

Andrew Smith, Chief Technology Officer

Shore Capital (Nominated Adviser and Broker)

Hugh Morgan Tel: +44 (0)20 7408 4090

Edward Mansfield

Daniel Bush 

Camarco (Media enquiries)

Jennifer Renwick Tel: +44 (0)20 3757 4994

Jake Thomas

Notes to Editors

About Nucleus

Nucleus is a wrap platform founded in 2006 by advisers committed to altering the balance of power in the industry by putting the client centre stage. It provides independent wrap platform services to over 1,390 active adviser users across more than 800 financial adviser firms as at 30 September 2018. It is responsible for assets under administration ("AUA") of £14.7bn on behalf of more than 92,000 customers.

The multi award-winning platform offers a range of custody, trading, payment, reporting, fee-handling, research and integration services across a variety of tax wrappers and more than 6,500 asset choices including cash, OEICs, unit trusts, offshore funds, structured products and listed securities, including ETFs and investment trusts.

The Platform currently facilitates over 1.1 million client account transactions on average per month.

Nucleus has won CoreData's 'Best medium sized platform' for 2018 (and the last seven years), the Schroders 'Platform of the year' award for 2018 (and the last three years) and recently won 'Best platform' and award for 'Platform innovation' at the 2018 Money Marketing Awards.