Mattioli Woods has reported profits of £4.8mn before tax for the second half of 2022, up 45.5 per cent from the 3.3mn reported in the first half of the year.
In its half year results, published today (February 7), chief executive of Mattioli Woods, Ian Mattioli, said the results showed a resilient trading performance against a complex macroeconomic and geopolitical backdrop.
The company announced a 6 per cent increase in interim dividend of 8.8p per share, up from 8.3p in the first half of the year.
Mattioli said this was to illustrate the company’s confidence in the financial outlook of the business.
“During the period, we proactively balanced securing good financial outcomes for our clients with ensuring the long-term growth and sustainability of our business, remaining true to our purpose of putting clients first,” he said.
“We are pleased to report further progress towards our strategic medium-term goals, achieving continued revenue growth in the first half of this financial year.”
As reported in a market update in January, the company saw its revenue rise 10 per cent in the six months to the end of November.
However, gross discretionary assets under management fell 4 per cent in the period, to £4.9bn, despite net inflows of £38mn.
The outlook for the current year remains in line with management’s expectations.
Mattioli noted that the boost in reported revenue to £54.9mn was driven by positive performance in the firm’s pensions advice and administration, employee benefits, property management and private equity management operating segments.
“The success of our new business initiatives and the strength of existing client referrals resulted in organic revenue growth of over 2 per cent, despite a 2 per cent fall in the value of total client assets,” he said.
“Clients’ demand for advice and proactive communications by our advisers in such uncertain times resulted in an increase in advisory time, as well as the value of new clients on-boarded in the first half more than 10 per cent higher than the equivalent period last year,” Mattioli added.
The company has completed eight acquisitions since January 2021, including its two largest to date, involving private equity firm Maven Capital Partners and financial planning business Ludlow Wealth Management.
The deals were worth more than £143mn.
In May last year it completed the acquisition of Ferguson Financial Management, bringing in another £80mn of assets under advice.
The wealth manager reported a total of 490 new clients for the period, down from 587 in the first half of the year. Some 406 of these were new Sipp, Ssas and personal clients with assets totalling £91mn.
At the end of November, total client assets were £14.6bn.
jane.matthews@ft.com
