Income from Financial Planning, wealth management and pensions saw an increase at Walker Crips according to its latest set of figures for the year ended 31 March. 

The stockbroker, which has a Financial Planning arm, reported an increase in income from planning, wealth management and pensions from £2,226,000, in 2017, to 2,317,000 this year.

Elsewhere the group’s assets under management dipped from £5.2bn to £5bn, but discretionary and advisory assets under management increased from £3.2bn to a high of £3.3bn.

David Gelber, chairman, Walker Crips, said: “Our core business has performed steadily in 2017/18, with improvements in our key performance indicators a heartening signal that the cornerstones of the business continue to provide the financial stability we have enjoyed for decades.

“In the year to 31 March 2018 we reported increased revenues of £30.5m (2017: £29.2m) and at the period end, total assets under management and administration, a key metric of performance, was £5bn (2017: £5.2bn), above our target level of £5bn, with discretionary and advisory assets under management increasing to £3.3bn (2017: £3.2bn).

“Overall our operating profit before tax and exceptional items was £906,000, being 17.8% down on £1,102,000 in 2017.

“The proportion of non-broking revenue to total income improved to 64.1% as we continue to make the business less reliant on unpredictable transaction-based income.

“We are establishing innovative high margin alternative investment products and planning accelerated use of technology to drive the business forward with significant growth in the group’s products and services.

“The next phase of development is embodied in a three-pronged approach to grow our core business, expand our alternative offering and commercialise our technology.
 
“We are confident that implementation of this strategy will provide the springboard for the more consistently higher levels of profitability that we seek.”
 
Sean Lam, chief executive, said: “While dealing with the new regulations, we invested heavily in staff, systems and a meaningful amount of management and investment manager and adviser time towards ensuring the business was compliant with these new regulatory requirements.

“Now that these have been embedded into the business, we are focusing on managing our administrative cost base, continuing to build funds under management and maintaining revenue growth to improve our profit margin to drive our three-pronged strategy.”