Quilter H1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 6, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Core net flows reached £4.5 bn in H1, annualizing at £9 bn and driving market-leading inflows across both affluent and high-net-worth segments.
  • Positive Sentiment: Operating margin improved to 30%, adjusted profit rose 3% to £100 m, EPS increased 4% to 5.4 p, and the interim dividend was lifted 18% to 2 p.
  • Positive Sentiment: The affluent segment delivered net inflows up 132% year-on-year, revenues grew 6%, and adjusted profits climbed 10% amid disciplined cost management.
  • Positive Sentiment: Quilter’s platform and Wealth Select MPS remain market leaders by assets and IFA adoption, benefiting from a highly scalable model that boosts share of wallet.
  • Positive Sentiment: Simplification and transformation programmes have secured £43 m of run-rate savings to date, with the balance of £50 m+ expected by year-end to support further margin gains.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Quilter H1 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Speaker 3

Good morning and welcome to our results presentation for the first half of 2025. This morning I will start with our business highlights, our strong flow, momentum, and the scale of the opportunity ahead. I'll spend a bit of time on something that I don't always think is appreciated: the scalability and market leadership of our affluent business. Finally, I'll say a few words on our strategic priorities and my areas of focus to further improve our business as usual. Mark will then take us through the financials. I will summarize as to why recent policy developments are a positive for Quilter and we'll end with Q and A. We've had a good start to 2025. Profits have increased from a very strong 2024 base and flows are much higher. Let me start with the highlights. Core net flows were much higher, up to £4.5 billion.

Speaker 3

That's only £700 million less than we achieved in the whole of 2024. Flows into both segments were sharply.

Speaker 1

Better year on year.

Speaker 3

Our operating margin, which has improved steadily, is now 30% in line with our medium term goal. Adjusted profit increased 3% to £100 million. That reflects higher revenues despite a lower contribution from interest on capital and good cost management. Alongside business investment, earnings per share increased 4% to £0.054 and the board has declared an interim dividend of £0.02, an increase of 18%. Let's drill down a little bit more into the flows. This slide shows gross new business outflows and net inflow performance for the last three half years. The key points are new business flows have continued to increase in 2025. Outflows have returned to more normal levels as both cost of living pressures and consolidated activity has eased. Note that our outflows include regular income drawdowns as well as surrenders.

Speaker 3

Unlike how some of our peers disclose, the combination of these has led to the excellent improvement in net flows. Given the momentum of our business, the current levels of flows, which annualize to around £9 billion, feel sustainable. As you can see from this slide, we've outperformed our peers again in the first half. We remain the market leader for net inflows in both our affluent and high net worth segments. We're doing well. As you know, we're operating in attractive markets which benefit from structural growth trends. Everything we've seen recently has reinforced our conviction with three key drivers. First, the complexity of UK tax rules, including recent changes to bring pensions into the inheritance tax net, continues to drive demand for advice from baby boomers who wish to pass on their assets in a tax efficient way.

Speaker 3

Secondly, the UK faces a significant retirement funding challenge as state support diminishes and with future retirees having little or no defined benefit pensions, individuals are going to have to take more personal responsibility for their financial security in retirement. Fundamentally, most people need to invest significantly more. Finally, policymakers and regulators now recognize the.

Speaker 1

Scale of the problem.

Speaker 3

The focus on targeted support, encouraging long term investments, and other recent initiatives is a constructive first step. We now need to see effective implementation to give people the confidence to make long term decisions. Our firm belief is that individuals need to invest in diversified portfolios to build capital over time. That's what Quilter is built to deliver. These growth dynamics provide a positive backdrop for our business. Let's look at the long term growth trends. As you can see on the left, there's currently about £700 billion on advised platforms, and there's around £1 trillion managed by high net worth firms, including private banks. Independent observers expect UK advised platform assets to increase by around 70% by the end of 2029 and for high net worth assets to grow about 50% over the same period. Clearly that's a very attractive growth opportunity.

Speaker 3

Our affluent segment is a highly scalable market leader in what is clearly a high growth market. I'll get into those dynamics shortly.

Speaker 1

Our high net worth business is more.

Speaker 3

Relationship focused, so less naturally scalable. However, we see the opportunity to grow by increasing productivity and operating margin, adding larger accounts and gradually increasing advisors and investment managers. Let me say a few words on the performance of each segment. Affluent had a very strong first half. Net inflows more than doubled, up 132%. That annualizes at 9% of opening balances. Revenue was up 6% and cost discipline offset business investment, giving strong adjusted profit growth of 10%. High Net Worth had its strongest period for net flows in quite a while. Net inflows were up significantly year on year, equivalent to 3% of opening balances. Revenues were stable, reflecting mix shift, and continued investment in the business led to broadly flat first half adjusted profits. Now I'd like to turn to our Affluent segment and say a few words on the scalability and market leadership we enjoy here.

Speaker 3

First, when it comes to managing assets, platforms with their flexibility and ease of use are the natural custodian for household wealth and as the leading advised platform by both flows and assets. With not far off £100 billion in assets, we enjoy a strong competitive position here. Scale matters. I'm particularly pleased about the strong momentum that our platform has enjoyed over the last year. The chart here shows the progression in gross and net flows by half year over the last 18 months. The Quilter channel is in green and the IFA channel is in grey. Increased use of our platform by IFAs means our market share of IFA net flows has been on a sharp upward trajectory since late 2023, reaching around 30% in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025.

Speaker 3

On the right, I've included a quote which gives you a market view from Landcat on our platform proposition. It summarizes how strongly our platform performed.

Speaker 1

In 2024 and it's clearly doing even better in 2025.

Speaker 3

Now, we often get asked how independent advisors rate our platform, and this chart sets out some of the data from the recent investment trends report. In each case, Quilter is shown in green. Far left, you can see the breadth of our independent advisor relationships by primary, secondary, and other. Across the market, we enjoy the largest breadth overall, and we lead by a number of primary and secondary relationships. In the middle, you can see how that breadth has evolved over time with substantial improvement over the last two years. That's the result of hard work from our distribution team. Finally, on the right, you can see the evolution of our net promoter scores over the last five years. This again demonstrates how we've won hearts and minds since the new platform was launched.

Speaker 3

Basically, our platform enables advisors to deliver for their clients, so they like using it and are putting an increasing amount of business with us. Our platform's got great recognition. Our WealthSelect MPS is also recognized.

Speaker 1

As a market leader, too.

Speaker 3

As you know, regulation has encouraged an increasing number of independent advisors to focus on advice and to outsource investment solutions. WealthSelect MPS meets these needs very well. Its strong performance and competitive price make it attractive to both our own and independent advisors. That's why we've grown AUMA strongly in the last year. As you can see, we've been vying for the number one position with our nearest peer. These figures are at the end of the first quarter, and at the end of June our AUM had increased to £21 billion. I've also included some independent views which provide a market perception. Our platform together with WealthSelect MPS provide a very strong combined proposition that few of our peers can match.

Speaker 3

We believe it's not just the platform per se, but the linkage between our platform and solutions and the scalability of the Quilter plc model that gives our affluent segment a distinct competitive advantage. Let me explain. In the first half, we attracted gross flows of around £7.6 billion onto our platform, a year-on-year increase of over 36%. That additional flow can be managed through our existing sales and support teams without a notable increase in costs. Where assets are both on our platform and in our advice-based solutions, we believe that delivers a better result for both our customers and for us too. In the first half of 2023, £2.5 billion, or around a third of the gross platform inflows, went into our solutions. The cost base of our solutions business is largely fixed, so additional flow can be managed without a notable uplift in expenses.

Speaker 3

The crucial thing to understand is that both the platform and Quilter plc solutions are highly scalable. That's why we focus on maximizing the assets in each by using multiple distribution channels. Now let me turn to our three strategic Building Distribution, Enhancing Propositions, and Being Future Fit. We've made good progress across the board on all. First, distribution. It's been a good six months here. We've continued to take market share, and encouragingly we've increased both the number of advisors and advisor firms in the Quilter plc channel. So far this year, 63 advisors have graduated from our Quilter Academy and are starting.

Speaker 1

To build their books.

Speaker 3

Our high performing WealthSelect MPS is now on five third party platforms. We announced the acquisition of Gillen Markets in Ireland, which adds meaningfully to our high net worth footprint there. Next, propositions, we are developing a smooth managed fund proposition which we'll update on in due course. As you expect, we've been working on a new proposition for targeted support. I'll say more on that later. On becoming Future Fit, we've continued to make progress on our simplification and transformation programs as well as investing in other growth initiatives. You'll sense the momentum in these areas is really moving Quilter plc forwards year on year. Finally, before I hand over to Mark Satchel, let me say a few words on my near term priorities. We've nearly completed our second simplification program. We've delivered £43 million of run-rate savings with the rest due by year end.

Speaker 3

As I mentioned earlier, in the first half we completed the merger of our advice and investment management businesses within high net worth. Looking forward, there are four key areas that I'm focused on. First, building the advice business of tomorrow. Our 1,500 or so advisors wrote about £2.5 billion of.

Speaker 1

New business in the first six months.

Speaker 3

Of 2025, a broadly similar figure to the prior year. Our Advice Transformation program aims to materially increase advisor productivity to drive client and asset growth to ensure we continue to.

Speaker 1

Increase our ability to write new business.

Speaker 3

Next, we'll continue to invest in new channels to broaden our distribution, including developing a targeted support proposition to support clients earlier in their wealth journey. Turning to High Net Worth, Andy McGlone has done a great job of ensuring that we're well placed strategically. By repositioning our business to capture more higher value clients and by moving our advisors into our investment business, we're able to serve clients better and at lower cost. I've tasked Andy's successor, John Goddard, who joins in September, to build on that. I want us to offer fully integrated advice and investment solutions to a wider range of high net worth clients. Finally, we will invest more in our brand. As you may have seen, Quilter is the title partner for Rugby's Quilter Nation series later this year. That's the start and there's more to follow. Right?

Speaker 3

With that, let me hand over to Mark.

Speaker 6

Thank you, Stephen, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by echoing Stephen's comment that our business is in great shape. We delivered a strong financial performance in the first six months of the year. Let me give you the three financial points that tell the story of our half year results. We delivered solid growth in net management fees of 5% with overall revenue growth at 2% as a result of lower interest income on shareholder capital. Costs were a little higher year on year as I guided you back in March, reflecting business investment and higher FSCS levies. Our cost discipline and simplification initiatives gave us a percentage point increase in our operating margin, which is now at 30%, and our balance sheet remains in good shape. Let's get into the detail with my usual analysis of the P&L dynamics.

Speaker 6

Starting top left, net flows of £4.5 billion in the core business were substantially ahead of 2020 average. AUMA was up 11% on last year, now against the year end position of £119.4 billion. What we've actually seen is a contribution from markets after currency headwinds and positive flows. While the sharp but temporary market decline in April had an impact on our revenues, you can't see that in average AMA, which is based on month end averages. Top right, you can see revenues grew 2% to £337 million in total, despite lower interest rates reducing investment revenue. Costs, bottom left, were up 2% to £237 million, reflecting higher FSCS levies and business investment. As a result, adjusted profit increased by 3% to £100 million. That gave an operating margin of 30%, and we reported adjusted diluted earnings per share of 5.4 pence, an increase of 4%.

Speaker 6

Now, getting into the moving parts, let's start with revenue margins, which are in line with guidance on this slide. Each chart shows the average revenue margin for the past four half year periods. In high net worth, on the left, the margin was down 2 basis points on the year end, largely reflecting mix and lower client cash balances. In affluent, the decline in the managed margin largely reflected mix shift, with Carilium active outflows offset by growth in MPS and other solutions. In line with my previous guidance, I expect the managed margin to fluctuate around the low to mid-30s basis points level, with mix being the driver of movements. Finally, our platform or administered margin was 23 basis points. The step down on the second half 2024 run rate appears exaggerated here as a result of rounding along with the revenue impact from the April market's decline.

Speaker 6

Let's now turn to revenues by segment. Our high net worth revenues were stable. Higher average assets were broadly offset by the lower margin, with total revenue increasing by 1%. In the affluent segment, revenues grew 6%, clearly a good performance. The main contributors were higher net management fees on both administered and managed assets, with a lower contribution from investment revenue and advice fees. Let's now turn to costs. As I flagged at the full year, in 2025 we've stepped up business investment. However, I'm pleased to report that we kept cost growth to just 2% while absorbing inflationary pressures and a quarter of higher national insurance rates. We reduced base costs marginally as a percentage of revenues, which drove the improvement in the operating margin, while the costs of revenue generating staff and variable compensation remained broadly stable as a percentage of revenues.

Speaker 6

The waterfall on the right summarizes the main cost changes year on year. Increases came from inflation, higher national insurance, and regulatory levies as well as the investments we've made. Reductions principally came from our simplification program, which is on track to complete by the end of the year. In the bar far right, you can see how the overall cost base breaks down by segment. High net worth and affluent segment costs increased by 2% and 4% respectively. These reflected inflation and higher regulatory costs coupled with investment in Ireland for high net worth and investments in new wealth, the Quilter Academy, and other initiatives in affluent. These increases were partially offset by simplification benefits.

Speaker 6

Looking forward, I previously guided for costs to be around £500 million for the year, and I believe that will be towards the upper end of my expectations for the group's total expenses this year. Putting the segment revenues and group costs together, this slide shows the segmental contribution to group profitability. High net worth delivered profit of £24 million, broadly in line with the prior year, and affluent profit showed a healthy increase of 10% to £79 million. The operating margin declined marginally in high net worth, but improved by a percentage point in affluent. As you heard from Stephen, this part of our business is very scalable, so there's scope for further improvements here. Now let me turn to the balance sheet. As you'd expect, we've maintained a strong solvency ratio and cash position.

Speaker 6

The solvency ratio reduced marginally over the period, largely due to the impact of bolt-on acquisitions. In terms of cash, you'll note the level of capital contributions into subsidiaries where we've injected cash to fund M&A deals we've announced, and we've capitalized our regulated advice business to cover the potential cost of remediation in respect of ongoing advice. On the right, you can see we've got around £350 million of cash available after payment of the interim dividend. That leaves us with a good buffer to cover contingencies, liquidity management, and business investment while retaining balance sheet optionality. Our balance sheet is in good shape, and as I've already mentioned, we will undertake a full review of our capital requirements and allocation priorities, and I expect to update on that with the full year results.

Speaker 6

The Board has declared an interim dividend of £0.02 per share that has been set at a level of one-third of the 2024 total dividend. While that is a year-on-year increase of 18%, that largely reflects the low base level for the interim dividend in 2024. I wouldn't take that increase as an indication of likely full year dividend growth. Before I get to guidance, let me take a step back and highlight the change we've delivered over the last five years since we sold Quilter International. Average AUMA was essentially flat for the first half of that timeline as flows were weaker than expected and market levels struggled with low growth and macro factors, particularly in 2022. Despite that, we have increased both our adjusted profit and operating margin significantly. What has driven that is modest revenue growth combined with cost discipline.

Speaker 6

Costs have decreased over the period in nominal terms despite the inflationary environment. That cost discipline has allowed us to manage the revenue margin change experienced across the industry as advisors look to reduce total costs, clients pay for advice and investment management services. Looking forward, we expect the pace of margin deterioration to ease. While I still expect some revenue margin attrition in line with guidance, we will continue to benefit from our integrated model that, coupled with a better environment for flows and stock market performance, should deliver positive outcomes. With our simplification programs now drawing to an end, we have significantly realigned the cost profile of our business, making our operational infrastructure simpler and more efficient, as we said we would do.

Speaker 6

While we expect more normal cost growth into next year from inflation and business development, the scalability of the business will deliver improvements in operating margin, supporting our goal of steady compounding of earnings over time. Let me finish with our usual guidance slide. Our expectation is for the operating environment to remain constructive and guidance across all the other key line items remains largely unchanged. I spoke earlier about cost expectations for the remainder of the year. That includes brand spend and investment in the business, which we anticipate will increase in the second half. I currently expect these increases in costs to largely offset the higher revenue contributions from our net flow momentum in markets. As a result, we currently anticipate the second half adjusted profit will be broadly equivalent to the first half outturn. With that, let me hand back to Stephen.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mark. Right, before I conclude, let me pick up on just how well suited we are.

Speaker 1

Are to the evolving policy environment that I discussed earlier.

Speaker 3

First, the ever-increasing complexity in UK tax law, and especially recent changes to inheritance tax for pensions, has increased the number of people who need personalized advice. Second, the evolution towards encouraging a better investment mindset is clearly welcomed. Individuals do need to be encouraged to invest more for retirement, and confidence in the stability of the fiscal environment is key to getting them to commit for the longer term. Both these strongly underpin demand for.

Speaker 1

The services that we provide.

Speaker 3

Finally, there's now potentially a new growth opportunity emerging from the advice guidance boundary review targeted support. This is a way of bridging the advice gap and helping people who need but don't currently have access to financial advice or guidance. This is an interesting long term opportunity for us as we've clearly got the capability and the scale to provide an integrated proposition to meet client needs here. To conclude, we're really pleased with our start to 2025 with strong flow, momentum, and revenues and profit continuing to move in the right direction. The three messages I'd like to leave you with are we operate in a large, fragmented, and growing market, helping us deliver sustainable growth.

Speaker 3

Our propositions and the breadth of our distribution are both market leading and they're delivering strong inflows, and our platform and solutions businesses allow us to generate scale efficiencies and operating margin progression. That's why we're confident in our prospects and why we expect to deliver steady.

Speaker 1

Compounding of earnings over the medium term.

Speaker 3

Right, let's open up for questions.

Speaker 7

Okay, we'll go to questions and I think we're going to go to the phones. First to lead with, I think the first was Andy Sinclair from Bank of America Merrill.

Speaker 7

Hi guys. Hope you can hear me. Yes, for me as usual, please. First, it's great to see momentum building in the advisor headcount and the Quilter Academy generating recruits. There have been a few comments about moving the advice business to completely restricted operations. Can you give us a little bit of an idea of how many independent advisors you have remaining today and maybe just a little bit of color in terms of how retention rates have been evolving for advisors? That's the first question. Second, well done, Mark. Again, beat on costs again. If you can give us a little bit more color in terms of how much there is still to be done on costs, you're now at a 30% operating margin and with hopefully revenues accelerating. Where do we think we can go from here? Third was just on the flow mix within the platform.

Speaker 7

You mentioned that there's been the noise around tensions. What are you seeing in terms of mix of flows between different products? I guess for both gross inflows and retention, any color you could give.

Speaker 7

Us, there would be great.

Speaker 7

Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Andy.

Speaker 1

I'll take the first and the third question. I'll let Mark Satchel pick up the second question. On advisor headcount, yes, as you see, we have increased our advisor headcount both through recruitment and through people coming through our Quilter Academy, which we're really pleased about. In terms of the number of independent advisors, they're not included, first of all, in our advisor numbers that we give out. The advisor numbers we give out are only the restricted financial planners. We have a very small number of IFAs, and we haven't actually recruited new IFAs for at least the last five years. This is a very small number of IFAs. I don't think it's material either way on that point, Andy, but they're not included in the numbers at all at the moment, and any of those that move to restricted will be additions. In terms of the third question.

Speaker 3

About the flow mix, what we've seen.

Speaker 1

We have seen a small increase.

Speaker 3

In new cash investments, and that generally is not the pension side.

Speaker 1

We have been doing very well in insured bonds. In the first half, it's always ISA season, so there's been a bit more mix of ISA in the first half than there was in the second half last year, as I think you would expect in terms of flows. Our pensions business remains incredibly strong. What we have started to notice is a small increase or shift in mix, I suppose, in terms of new cash versus transfers. That's something that we think is going to continue. We have talked before about the very significant amount of cash sitting in the system that needs to be invested. We're seeing the starts of that now.

Speaker 6

Andy, just in your.

Speaker 6

Sorry, just on that, Stephen. Sorry, Mark, can you give us an idea of roughly what the mix is today of cash versus new transfers for pensions?

Speaker 1

The mix of cash is about cash investments are about 45% and transfers about 55%, and that's up a bit from 60, 40 to 55, 45. That's the ratios.

Speaker 6

Okay. Andy, just on your costs, I mean, I think we've maintained very good cost discipline and I think we've sort of proven that as a track record now for a good number of years. If you remember back when we were selling businesses and we had stranded costs and everything, we had an optimization program that took out £60 million within that simplification phase one, that was £50 million and we now had simplification phase two, which is another £50 million. In total, when we threw all of this, it's about £150 million of costs that have taken out different baseline measures and stuff like that. In broad terms, we are £43 million on a run-rate basis through the last £50 million, we've got another £7 million to go, which I'm pretty confident we'll achieve by the end of this year and at the full year results.

Speaker 6

I think in the slide deck in the appendices, we've kind of put together there the sort of the way that we look at the business model going forward and on the expense side, I'm expecting that sort of going into 2026, 2027, etc. that the sort of cost profile of the business more or less will be an increase of inflation plus a few percentage points to reflect ongoing investment within the business. Cost discipline will continue to be something that's maintained and obviously some of that will also be influenced by what's going on on the revenue side and the macro picture and how market performance, etc., is developing too. Great stuff.

Speaker 6

Thanks.

Speaker 7

Okay, we're going to the next question, please. Just a reminder for those on the line, if you want to ask a question, please press one. The next question comes from Ben Bathurst at RBC.

Speaker 7

Morning. Hopefully you can hear me. Okay, I've got questions in two areas if I may. Starting on high net worth. Stephen, you referenced moving from being principally investment led in that area to offering a more integrated wealth solution. Do you think you'll need more advisor capacity in order to deliver that? On that subject further, could you just give some more color on the starting point there in terms of the % of flows into high net worth assets currently that are fully integrated, that is related to advice and investment. The second area is just on the capital requirements review for Mark. How broad are the terms of reference for that review? There's been a long term debate as to whether being part of the solver regime is really suitable for the group. Given so much of your business is uncovered or not, insurance business.

Speaker 7

Are you planning to tackle that question as part of this review or is that one still for the longer term? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Ben. On the first question, high net.

Speaker 1

Yes, we do see the benefits of integrated solutions, basically advice and financial planning together, and that is a focus. We are increasing the number of advisors, and our plan, as I've said, is to increase the number of advisors and the number of investment managers we have over time. We do actually have capacity at this point in terms of the number of advisors that we currently have. The details on the exact splits, we haven't actually disclosed that. I'm not going to give any numbers now. Remember also, a lot of the business that we get is via IFAs, so the client is getting an integrated advice and investment management solution. What we're doing is adding our own advisors as well.

Speaker 1

We will have the options of doing business in multiple different ways in our high net worth business, and that is a key part of our future growth opportunity. Mark, you want to think about the question?

Speaker 6

Yeah, Ben, look, the capital review, if I just take a step back, will be pretty comprehensive in terms of what we're doing. You had a specific question just around Solvency 2 there. I have had discussions with both regulators about the regulatory regime in the past, in the fairly recent past actually. The issue that I think the industry has more generally is that in order for us to come out of the Solvency 2 regime on an ongoing basis, in other words, that I've got the certainty that we will actually be out of it because waivers can be provided, but they're normally temporary in nature and then you've got to reapply, which frankly doesn't help me at all in longer term capital planning because you want it to be permanent.

Speaker 6

Uncertainty around it is that it would actually require a rewrite of the solvency regulations in the UK in order for us to come out of it. On every one of the metrics, or virtually every one of the metrics that are measured in order to determine whether a company should be Solvency 2 regulated or not, we are firmly within the metric that suggests or that says that we are forced into Solvency 2 regulation. There's actually not a, you're actually looking at the regulator applying dispensation. If that dispensation can't be provided irrevocably, it doesn't really provide sufficient certainty to go ahead with anything or any sort of long term planning. That's where we are. I'm sure I'll probably have those discussions again, but bluntly I can't speak for the regulator, but not necessarily expecting a different outcome to come about as a consequence of that.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mark.

Speaker 7

Okay, the next question comes from Enrico Bolzoni at JP Morgan. Please go ahead, Enrico.

Speaker 7

Hi, good morning all and thank you for taking my questions. I would like to go back once more to the high net worth world that saw very nice net flows. Can you give us maybe some extra color on how you plan to accelerate further growth in this division? I'm just trying to understand if you think that growth will come more from, for example, onboarding new customers or winning more share of wallet with the existing ones. Any color there would be helpful also because it's the highest margin division within the business. I also wanted to ask you a bit about your Advice Transformation program that you say will hopefully increase advisor productivity and generally speaking you say that advisors should be able to service more clients.

Speaker 7

Can you help us with some color on, in practical terms, what are you doing to increase the productivity of advisors? You also say that it will take a couple of years for this program to be rolled out. Are we going to see some of the benefits earlier than that or do we need to wait a couple of years before that is reflected in flows? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Enrico.

Speaker 3

On the first question in terms of high net worth, we're pleased with.

Speaker 1

The improvement we've seen in flows, but we think there's still scope to grow that business further. In terms of growth initiatives, we've got actually multiple initiatives underway. We expect to see new customers coming from our advice part of the business. We have opened up some new channels, which we call professional connections. Those are things like Court of Protection, which is a specialist area when people get settlements out of court cases and things like that, and they need to manage them as an income for life. There are things involving partners of accounting firms that have got very significant investment.

Speaker 3

Restrictions, things like that.

Speaker 1

We're building out businesses to deal with that, and those are going quite well. We have got a focus on charities and other things.

Speaker 3

There is a significant number of channels.

Speaker 1

That we are focused on.

Speaker 3

To your real question, I think you.

Speaker 1

There's a mix of new money from existing customers and obviously taking on new customers. We're trying to shift our business a little bit more high net worth to get some of the.

Speaker 3

We do have some smaller accounts.

Speaker 1

We're in the process. We've talked about shifting into MPS solutions, which we think will be better for the customers.

Speaker 3

Will free up time and capacity.

Speaker 1

Our investment managers to take on new clients. Those are the initiatives we have underway to drive flow growth in our high net worth business. On your second question on the advice.

Speaker 3

Transformation program, advisor productivity, we have got.

Speaker 1

Initiatives underway in the short term that will deliver improvements in productivity.

Speaker 3

We have done that. The more significant changes will come.

Speaker 1

With the completion of the program, which.

Speaker 3

Will involve rolling out new technology for.

Speaker 1

The advisers to use, specifically.

Speaker 3

The work here is about.

Speaker 1

Taking time out of the advice process.

Speaker 3

Automating parts, removing re-keying, removing a.

Speaker 1

Whole lot of inefficiencies. Advisors, the average advisor spends about 25% of their time in front of clients and about 75% of their time on administration, back office, preparing for meetings, etc. If we can reduce that 75% of the time through better technology, which we absolutely know we can, that can make a meaningful improvement in advisor productivity. That is what's going to be coming with the completion of our Advice Transformation program. That part is, we have said, is a few years away, it's probably still a couple of years off because we are going to be putting in place an entirely new solution for our advisors to use, which will be a lot more streamlined.

Speaker 1

We do have, as I said, we do have some benefits coming in between because we are trying to make sure that we continue to deliver small changes until we do the larger scale improvements in a couple of years' time.

Speaker 7

Okay, the next question on the call comes from David McCann at Numis. Go ahead, David.

Speaker 7

Yeah, morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. That's three from me as well, please. Firstly, on the revenue margins, coming back to that, Mark, you did say that they were sort of broadening your guidance, but it did look like it dropped sort of two basis points in all three of the areas versus the second half of last year, a bit more than actually sort of year on year. You did give some color earlier in the remarks, but particularly in the administered part, what's caused us to slip more than the one bip per annum? You touched on the outlook for the second half being not quite as pronounced as that. Can you just give a little bit more color on that? What's really driven that number down is what I just really wanted color on, please. The second question would probably relate to this.

Speaker 7

At the full year stage, you guided to the adjusted operating profit growing probably mid to high single digits %. Now, implicitly in the second half guidance, you look now, I guess, talking about more like low single digits %. Obviously, markets are a bit higher overall since then. The costs look similar at £500 million, if anything maybe a touch lower than you were talking about for the full year. What's really changed? Is it just this revenue margin being a bit lower, or is there something else to consider? Finally, you'll have noted that here, obviously, did reduce substantially their provisions for the ongoing advice redress. You've obviously kept yours flat. Now, I appreciate, you know, not completely like for like here. You've set yours, you know, sometime later. You're obviously a little bit less advanced in the process.

Speaker 7

They did cite both their experience and updated regulatory guidance. I'm just curious as to why there is no apparent, no read across positive sense to you. I guess, why have you not, did you not feel the need to do something similar with the provision? That'd be great. Thank you.

Speaker 6

Okay, thanks, David. Maybe if I just start with the last one first. In terms of the provision, we'd already had the FCA announcements and some of the public statements that they'd made around the approach to be made on the ongoing advice charges and the skilled person review to take into consideration. We set our provision earlier this year so we were at a different point. I mean we had a year's benefit in terms of that cycle in comparison to some of our other industry peer groups. We still need to actually comprehensively get confirmation agreements, whatever from the regulator that the approach that we take into remediation is acceptable, whatever you want to call it by them. We're still going through that process with them. I'm not expecting anything untoward to come out of it.

Speaker 6

I'm actually thinking or expecting that the basis on which we originally provided is going to be the remediation program broadly that will be followed going forward. As a consequence of that, there hasn't been any change in our expectation of the provision requirements. We still believe that the current provision remains appropriate. You'd have seen at the start of the year, just to make sure that everyone is on the page because I think we had some other questions around this. The provision on a discounted basis was £76 million at the start of the year. We utilized £7 million of that in terms of our internal costs of setup. Then there's been an unwind of the discount rate of £1 million which gets you back to £70 million. We haven't actually reduced the provision or anything like that.

Speaker 6

The provision remains as we'd previously set it and we still believe that to be appropriate. On the revenue margins and on administered assets in particular, David, in rounded terms it's like 1.6 or 1.7 or whatever basis point decline, just given how the rounding worked from one period to another. I think probably the two things in there that are maybe causing it to be a little bit higher than the rounded 1.0. One is clients tiering where more clients have moved into the tiering brackets that result in a slightly lower overall charge for the client. The other is the growth within our own advisors' clients going on the platform. Those clients do benefit from the lowest rates generally that are charged on the platform or that we charge clients on the platform, and the proportion of those have improved a little bit.

Speaker 6

There's a little bit of a nuance amongst those things that's driving some of that. You also spoke about the adjusted profit mid to highest single digits budget and question around revenue margin. The other thing that I'd probably just add to the points that you made on adjusted profit for this year, we also expect interest rate reductions to sort of start to come into effect later or at the start—they've already started—but to continue into the second half of this year and into next year. Some of those will also sort of have an impact overall. Plus, we've got a bit more investment in the business. In some of the other initiatives that we've spoken about, the brand building, we're going to have a full year cost of some of the acquisitions that have been made.

Speaker 6

The new wealth proposition, we're going to be investing a bit more in the Quilter Academy as that scale starts to ramp up. I've previously spoken that it's going to take sort of two to three years for that to sort of get into the full cost cycle. I'm expecting a couple of million more from that probably coming through in the second half. It's really sort of taken a collection of a lot of those things together, which is what's driving that guidance for the second half of this year. In the medium term, we did set out at the full year expectations of how you should think about the business model: 5% asset growth, 5% NCCF, 10% increase in average assets, a bit of margin attrition. That might mean revenue growth comes down to around 8%, costs at inflation plus a few percentage points.

Speaker 6

That might be 4% or 5% cost growth, 8% revenue growth less than 4% or 5% cost growth is giving 3% or 4% profit growth. At 3% or 4% profit growth in terms of its actual profit increases translates into something that's 10% plus. That's the board maths of it, and that I think still holds.

Speaker 7

Okay, if there's nothing else, David, we'll move to the next question on the line, which is from Greg Simpson at Exam BMP. Go ahead, Greg.

Speaker 7

Hi morning.

Speaker 7

Thanks for the presentation. Some good exhibits in there. Free from my end. First, the pace of flows has been really impressive.

Speaker 6

Can you talk a bit about what?

Speaker 6

The mood around advisors and clients is heading into H2. Do you think this kind of 7% to 8% net flow rate could be sustained? Second question is just with the strong growth in MPS, how does the incremental margin on flows here compare to the 35 basis point margin on slide 20 for managed solutions in total? Thirdly, we've targeted the port. Could you maybe share some thoughts on whether it's a risk at all in terms of banks, insurers, DTC platforms being better able to retain clients who may.

Speaker 6

Historically have left to get some advice.

Speaker 6

Once their financial situation gets more complex? Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thanks Greg.

Speaker 1

In terms of flows and the mood out there, we are actually pretty positive. We're seeing continued good flows into this quarter, clients are definitely investing more. The sentiment and focus towards the need for advice and investing is good, which we're pretty pleased about. As we said, we're comfortable that the second half should be reflective of the first half. We sort of said we can sort of see a £9 billion flow number for the full year, for example.

Speaker 3

The mood is positive.

Speaker 1

The second question on the NPS incremental margins. I don't know, maybe Mark Satchel, you want.

Speaker 3

To comment on that one.

Speaker 6

Greg, if you go to slide 37 in the appendices, we've actually sort of set out there generally the revenue margin that we retain. After we've paid away the cost of manufacture to third party fund managers, etc. for Carilium Active, for Carilium Blend and Passive, which is a range depending which one you're in, as well as WealthSelect Active and WealthSelect Blend, you can kind of see the difference over there. What we retain on Carilium Active is roughly 65 bps at the one extreme. What we retain on, say, Carilium Passive is more like 25 bps. There are quite a few variations within that.

Speaker 6

From the slide, you can kind of see how the funds invested in Carilium Active have been declining over the last few years and the growth that we've seen within the managed portfolio solutions of WealthSelect and how those have been increasing, as well as how Carilium Blend and Passive have also increased over the period. The actual assets that are, and also the asset transfer that's happening, is predominantly from Carilium Active into the Carilium Blend Passive or into the WealthSelect predominantly Blend range. That is proving to be more popular with advisors and the clients. You can get a sense of the relative revenue margin contribution that each of those ranges make from slide 37.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Mark. Going to your last question.

Speaker 1

On the risk of targeted support, we.

Speaker 3

See target support as a great opportunity.

Speaker 1

There are obviously scenarios that lots of companies choose to participate in. I think it's not typically the area where clients who are getting advice are going to end up not getting advice and getting targeted support. We're finding that clients who need advice have got larger investment amounts and advisors are taking them on. The targeted support solutions I think are going to be at more simpler needs. They are definitely certainly not going to be able to provide the holistic advice. I'm not concerned that there's going to be a sort of material cannibalization from one to the other. Certainly not in your point about sort of clients getting targeted support at a bank and not getting full financial advice. In terms of the upside from targeted support, there's a huge advice gap or support gap in the country.

Speaker 1

There are only 4 million people who are getting advice. The number quoted often is only 8 or 9% of the population gets advice.

Speaker 3

There's a huge number of people.

Speaker 1

Who actually the reality is when you look at the stats, they've got money sitting in cash. That's what they have. There's this sort of £400 billion of excess cash deposits above the long-term averages. That sort of number. Those are the people that targeted support will really help. It is an opportunity for many people across the value chain. What is critically important about one of Quilter's USPs is that in a targeted support journey, you have to design a journey such that if targeted support is not appropriate for that client, you're asking questions and you realize targeted support is not appropriate. You have to give them an opt out, you have to stop the journey. Actually, those journeys generally are where the client's got more complex needs and needs advice.

Speaker 1

Quilter is incredibly well positioned there because we have the scale of our own advice business where we can transfer those clients into a fully advised solution then. They may want to start targeted support and realize actually their needs are more complex. That is something that very few companies in the market have in terms of the scale of the number of advisors that we have.

Speaker 1

Very helpful, thank you.

Speaker 7

Okay, I think that's it on the call. A reminder, if you do want to ask a question on the lines, please press Star one. We'll go to the webcast. At the moment there are two questions. The first for Mike Christellis at UBS who asks, your guidance for 4 to 5% net inflow looks low relative to the last 12 months. Where do you see the downside from the current 7% in the medium term?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mike.

Speaker 1

The guidance we've given is guidance through the cycle. We're clearly doing a lot better than that at the moment, and obviously we want to continue that.

Speaker 3

There is volatility.

Speaker 1

There can be in sort of markets. We've decided it's not appropriate for us to revise the guidance and to bounce it up and things like that at this point. I mean, you can obviously make your own forecast, as we've said. We've given our view that we're pretty confident that flow rates are going to continue at this level for the rest of the year. Obviously, also, as you know, what I don't want to be doing is changing the guidance continuously. If market level moves, as our flows in pound terms get bigger and bigger, AUM gets bigger and bigger. I don't want to be having to guide or adjust the guidance all the time. We've just said it's 5% through the cycle. We've delivered that, we've delivered well above that and we will continue to try to deliver well above that.

Speaker 1

Actually, the real measure I suppose for us is how we're doing relative to our peers and relative to our competitors. Probably the best measure for us is market share and relative performance to peers. As you've seen, we've done phenomenally well on that basis. That's actually the thing that we focus on a lot.

Speaker 7

The final question at the moment on the web is from Raheem at Investech, who asked, can you elaborate a little on the momentum in the MPS offering and whether you see any material benefit from the shift to offering it on third party platforms? What do you believe is a normalized rate of growth going forward, and do you believe there's a cap to your share in this market?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Reem.

Speaker 1

The MPS on third party platforms is a relatively new initiative. We've got it on five platforms now, but they've only been added over the last year really. It takes time to build up support. We're seeing some nice support coming through from advisors. Medium term, we expect that to be a really good source of flow and additional assets.

Speaker 3

Under management for us.

Speaker 1

At this stage it is just in its infancy still. We'll continue to add more platforms and build out that support. The momentum remains strong. I think it has become a market where MPS is the dominant solution that advisors want for their clients. You've seen that we've got a phenomenal MPS range. WealthSelect has got 56 different investment options or different flavors. We really cater to the full range of solutions. We've also got a strong MPS offering in our high net worth business. We've got a great proposition and the momentum is good.

Speaker 7

Okay, I think that's it in terms of questions from the web. Is there nothing else on the lines? Just have a last check. No, I think that's it then.

Speaker 3

Thank you everyone and we will.

Speaker 1

Talk to you again in our full.

Speaker 3

Year results in March. Thank you.

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