Revenue and pre-tax profits jumped at investment platform AJ Bell during the first half of its financial year, new figures have confirmed.
The Salford-headquartered listed group has reported a revenue of £73.9m for the six months to March 31, 2021, up 21% from the £60.9m it achieved during the same period in the prior year.
Its pre-tax profits also surged 39% from £22.7m to £31.6m, a statement to the London Stock Exchange shows.
AJ Bell also confirmed that its assets under management are up 180% over the last 12 months and 75% in the first half of the current financial year, closing at £1.4bn.
Chief executive Andy Bell said: "We have delivered a strong financial performance in the first half of the year, driven by record levels of new customers, inflows and dealing activity, with revenue up 21% and profit before tax up 39%.
"The average age of our new direct-to-consumer customers was 38 in the first half of the year, five years younger than the average of the wider customer base. Average portfolio values remained high at £79,000.
"Our record number of new customers has been helped by the low interest rate environment, as savers seek higher returns on cash held in savings accounts and Cash ISAs.
"Our advised platform proposition remains very popular with advisers, who appreciate the wider adoption of digital processes to support their remote working and the highly competitive charging structure.
"The recent acquisition of Adalpha will accelerate the development of a new mobile-focused platform to enhance our advised proposition and enable advisers to service a wider range of clients.
"Our investment business has performed extremely well, supporting both our advised and direct-to-consumer platform propositions, with total AUM increasing by 75% in the first half of the year.
"The recent additions of the AJ Bell Responsible Growth fund and Responsible Managed Portfolio service to our suite of investment solutions have proved very popular with customers and advisers.
"We have a resilient business model, our financial position is strong, we continue to grow market share and the outlook for the business remains positive."
On its outlook, the group added: "At AJ Bell, our core purpose is to help people to invest and we continue to develop our platform propositions and range of simple investment solutions to make investing easier for our customers.
"We have delivered a strong set of results in the first half of the year, with our award-winning, competitively-priced propositions attracting record levels of new customers and AUA inflows.
"The platform market continues to grow at pace in both the advised and D2C segments, and there is a growing awareness of the importance of investing for the future.
"Our secure, scalable and resilient platform ensures we continue to be well placed to capitalise on the resulting opportunities.
"We expect to be operating in a low-interest-rate environment for the foreseeable future, as the UK and global economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
"While we expect to see some normalisation of trading activity, our balanced revenue model provides resilience during times of market volatility and low interest rates.
"The future for the business remains positive. We have a robust business model, with a track record of delivering strong organic growth and increasing market share."
