Brooks Macdonald Group H2 2025 Earnings Report

Brooks Macdonald Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 72
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Brooks Macdonald Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Brooks Macdonald Group Announcement Details

• Quarter: H2 2025
• Date: 9/4/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, September 4, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 4:00AM ET

Brooks Macdonald Group (LON:BRK), through its subsidiaries, provides a range of investment and wealth management services to private clients, pension funds, professional intermediaries, and trustees in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. It operates through two segments, UK Investment Management and International. The company offers financial planning advisory services to high-net-worth individuals and families; and multi-asset and specialist fund products to the retail sector, as well as investment options. Brooks Macdonald Group plc was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Brooks Macdonald Group H2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Andrea Montagu highlighted a record £19.2 billion in assets under management with 4.6% revenue growth, flat BAU costs and a proposed final dividend of £0.51 (up 4.1%).
• Positive Sentiment: Integration of three acquisitions into Brooks Financial is on track, delivering the announced £1 million of synergies and creating a scalable UK-focused financial planning business under one brand.
• Positive Sentiment: The group launched a pioneering suite of retirement strategies, serving clients with £50 k–£1 m portfolios to capture a growing retiree market described as “game-changing” by IFA partners.
• Positive Sentiment: Investments of around £15 million in FY 2025—set to repeat in FY 2026—are focused on AI in planning, research and sales, plus digital upgrades like the InvestBM portal and a new mobile app to drive efficiency.
• Positive Sentiment: With no debt and strong capital, Brooks McDonald sees the UK’s 5 000 financial planning firms as a pipeline for disciplined, EPS-accretive M&A to accelerate growth over the next 12–18 months.

Presentation

[Eva Hatfield, Director - IR at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Good morning, and welcome to Brooks McDonald's twenty twenty five Full Year Results Q and A session hosted by Andrea Montagu, CEO of Brooks McDonald and Catherine Jones, CFO. Before I hand over to Andrea, let me remind you that you can raise questions via the conference call with details available on this morning's announcement as well as via webcast by clicking on the arrow at the bottom of your screen. With that, let me hand over to Andrea.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thanks, Eva, and good morning, everyone, and welcome. Before I take your questions, let me give you a few highlights.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It's been a busy year and I'm really pleased to say that we're executing our strategy to reignite growth. Over the year, we have reshaped the group to become a UK focused wealth manager and created a scalable financial planning business. We've also launched a suite of retirement strategies, which meets a really growing client need. And we've reported a record of £19,200,000,000 We've delivered 4.6% growth in revenue whilst maintaining BAU cost flat. Our investment performance remains strong and we've announced the Board of proposed a final dividend of £0.51 up 4.1% year on year.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

We've built momentum and are creating the conditions for success. So let's go to questions. We will start with the conference line, then move on to questions submitted via the webcast. When raising a question, please state your name and the company.

[Operator]

Thank you. First questions today come from the line of Rahim Karim from Investec. Please go ahead.

[Rahim Karim, Equity Analyst - Financial Services at Investec]

Hi, good morning. It's Richard Inseam from Investec. Thanks for taking my question. Two or three depending on how you want to count them, if I may. The first was just to ask a little bit more around the investments that you're making in AI implementation and how we should think about that impacting the business in terms of user experience and front office experience?

[Rahim Karim, Equity Analyst - Financial Services at Investec]

And kind of associated that is, you obviously talked about investing in the product suite and the offering. If you could perhaps just elaborate a little bit more on that, that would be super helpful. And then the second question was just to ask a little bit about how the M and A that you did last year is bedding in? How you think about M and A going forward? Obviously, there's strong balance sheet, some excess capital.

[Rahim Karim, Equity Analyst - Financial Services at Investec]

How you how we should be thinking about that in the context of the next twelve to eighteen months?

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Sure, Rehan, and thanks for your questions. I'll take the piece on M and A and then pass to Catherine for the particular questions on the framework around M and A and how we see it. So we've already, Rehan, as you know, lot spent a lot of time this year thinking about our digital capabilities and how to we've got three objectives and the first one is delivering better client service and that's what we've used AI already to do. So, this is continuing to invest in that. So we've got a broad range of examples across the group, which I'm really excited about.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

But we've got one key delivery partner working with us. We've already embedded a tool within the financial planning businesses, which has created capacity already with the financial planners across the group. We are now using AI in our research teams to optimize the outputs from investment data and being able to drive even stronger investment returns, you know they're already strong. And we are looking for example at AI in the sales and distribution teams. So, it's much talked about AI and I see a huge potential and those that use AI will win.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

In terms of M and A, I'll pass to Catherine in a second around the framework, but really there are many opportunities in The UK. I see there are opportunities in financial planning. For example, there's still 5,000 firms in The UK despite the continued discussion around consolidation. So lots of opportunities and we're well placed because we've got very strong relationships with financial planning firms across The UK. I think your question though is regarding framework and Catherine will pick that up.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Yes, thanks, Andrea. Raheem, thanks for the question. Just in terms of how the existing M and A is bedding and we're really pleased with that. So the three acquisitions that we made earlier in the year, the integration is going well. We're confident in the delivery of the synergies of $1,000,000 that we announced previously and really pleased to have launched the Brooks Financial brand and brought those businesses together.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

So that's going really well so far, embedding in well. In terms of how we think about it going forward, so as we've talked about before, we're focused on growing this business both organically and inorganically, and we will continue to look at inorganic opportunities. That won't surprise you, that's something we continue to do. But the approach remains disciplined. So we look at things all the time, but we're very focused on making sure that whatever we progress is the right fit for the company.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

As you point out, we have strong balance sheet, we've got no debt on the balance sheet, which is great, quite positioned to be in. But in terms of any acquisitions that we were to look at going forward, we would be focused on EPS accretion and making sure that there were attractive returns on investment from anything that we did. Thanks, Catherine.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

And Rahim, your the third I think they were really straightforward. The third part of the question around products, I'm really pleased that we launched global NPS. I'm very excited by the product launch in retirement strategies that we've got some results today. So essentially, we're first in the sector to launch this suite of retirement strategies, bringing clarity, choice and confidence to clients with the uncertainty in the macroeconomic conditions. My belief is that product suite is more relevant than ever to our clients.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It's already big market in The UK and growing fast. Retirement planning is one of the biggest opportunities for us and for the wealth sector. Over the next fifteen years, we expect that nearly a quarter of The UK population will be 65 and this product is unique. We can serve clients from 50,000 up to over a million. So, we've got three different products within the range and I'm really excited and it's been described as game changing by IFA clients. So you'll hear more of that throughout this year.

[Rahim Karim, Equity Analyst - Financial Services at Investec]

Thank you, both very much.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thanks, Reen.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Ben Baffurst from RBC Centimeters. Please go ahead.

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. I have questions in a couple of areas, if I may. Firstly, on the financials. You've guided that you expect investments to be at the same level in FY twenty twenty as it was for FY 'twenty five. I just want to confirm, does that apply to the investment that you've shown as above and below the underlying PBT line?

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

As I think the term investment is applied in both areas. And as a follow-up to that, what do you consider to have been the total level of investment spend in FY 2025? Because I don't think that has been separately dated in the release. And then secondly, just on the flow outlook. I wondered, are you beginning to see any traction in the advised only AUA that you spoke about half year as having the potential to transition to advised and managed over time?

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

And should we expect that to begin to be of help in the FY 2026 flow out term? Thank you.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thanks for the questions, Ben. Think I'll probably take both of those. So in terms of the investment, you're absolutely right. So I think there's some charts in the RNS, which hopefully are helpful in explaining the level of spend that we had in full year '25. So in total across both CapEx and kind of more below the line spend, it's around 15,000,000 And we would expect the same level of spend in full year '26.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Our focus is making sure that the investment is allocated to the areas and that really would drive the growth and make us more efficient in line with our reignite growth strategy. So it's the things like AI, enhancing our digital capabilities, transforming the front office processes and admin systems, and then reviewing the product set that Andrea has already talked about. So I'm really excited about how that's going to transform the business and the growth we're going to see from that and the more efficiency that will come. And then just in terms of the advice only assets, so as you know, our financial partners are all independent. We think that's an important choice that we have made and our clients are seeing the benefits of that independent advice.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

In terms of how much transitions during the year, it was a relatively small number. So I think CHF26 million is the number that we've disclosed in the report on accounts in respect of the period to thirty June. We're taking we've been very thoughtful. Our financial planners are having their ongoing suitability discussions with their clients. And so over time, those discussions will take place.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

And we think that at Brooks MacDonald, we have the breadth of proposition, the investment performance and the client service, which makes us a really good choice for their end clients. And so we hope to see some of that transition over time, but that will obviously depend entirely on client suitability.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thanks for your question, Ben. Hopefully, that was helpful.

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks. My one follow-up would be on the investment side. It looks to me as though you're also classifying some of your underlying cost as investment, too.

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

I think that's right. So where we are integrating the businesses, we would view that as investment spend, yes.

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

So that would be added to the 15,000,000 effectively?

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It's included with it.

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Conceptually?

[Katherine Jones, CFO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It would be included within it, yes, the 15,000,000 is the overall number.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

So then

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay, thank you.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

To add to that, the integration, we've delivered a pace we did the last acquisition at the January. And Catherine helpfully outlined the numbers around the advised assets. I see Brookfield Financial is really a growth area for us going forward. So essentially now we've got a scalable and quality financial planning business. There are many things that I'm excited about across the group and this is one of them.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It's quality independent financial advice, those advised assets. We're very careful with our clients come first. What we are doing is delivering strong investment performance across one, three, five, ten years across all risk portfolios. So, we believe we've got great products for these clients. And the interesting thing or one of the many interesting things about the Financial Planning business, Ben, is that our average clients, we've got an average portfolio of 550% higher than the rest of The UK.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

So, are high net worth clients. We focus on those affluent and high net worth clients and this is strategically aligned. It's really early days, I know you want the numbers, but really early days. Finished the integration, launched the brand on the July 1, and I'm really excited about the potential for the business.

[Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Thank you for that.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thanks, Ben.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Andrew Watson from Singel Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Watson, Equity Research - General Financials at Singer Capital Markets]

Good morning, boss. Obviously, kind of a already done and well done for that. Just after a bit of additional color on a number of areas of kind of strategic opportunity. So I think first of all, could you just give us an idea of any particular initiatives that you've got planned for H2 on advisor engagement and interaction? I expect there's an open road show, but just anything else?

[Andrew Watson, Equity Research - General Financials at Singer Capital Markets]

Then just on the technology investment that you're planning. We know that you're going to make some enhancements in terms of things like AI tools. But could you just give us a little bit more color around the transformation of front office process and what that entails in the most basic sense? And then just one greedy final third question was on Brooks Financial. We know that much of the integration has been done in the simplest sense.

[Andrew Watson, Equity Research - General Financials at Singer Capital Markets]

But just can you talk a little bit more about how you want the business to work more closely with the existing called BM franchise and opportunity that you see in the next six to twelve months there, please? Sorry about all those.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Yes. No, really, as always. Good questions, Andrew. So thank you for them. So take a step back, adviser engagement.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Part of our strategy is, first client service, second is increased product reach and that's all about advisor engagement. This is a context for Andrew and we are out there. The automotive show Catherine and I will be on it. It's as exciting as answering all these questions and we get to meet real clients and indeed the retirement income strategy proposition was formed from conversations that we've had with those clients. So, you see we've raised our game in terms of marketing, comms and branding and our clients have daily, weekly and monthly interaction with us.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

And the thing is that the budget going out to the November 26 gives us the absolute opportunity to engage with these clients more and that's what we're here to do to help them work out their financial needs for the future, give them support through what is difficult macroeconomic time. In terms of front office processes, Andrew, I could probably spend the next half an hour speaking about that. But if we summarize what we're doing, essentially what I want to be able to create is opportunities for the I'm to be in front of our clients more and release that capacity. We're doing that in many ways. For example, InvestBM is our core portal that's now used and has taken up great feedback on that from our clients, but 72% of our clients can log online.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

I'm sure you've noticed on Monday, we launched the app, again has been received well. We're going paperless or in process to go paperless, a great uptick on that. And there's much, much more to do in AI to help both the financial planning team and the I'm teams release capacity to be in front of the client. And how we your third question again, spend half an hour on, but the financial planning business, as we've said, is we've built something really quite special. And it is now under one brand and a very strong leadership team in place as a whole of market scalable financial planning business.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

And how to interact, well, we have a very broad proposition range. We believe we know we've got the right products to serve those clients, financial planning clients, and we've increased the client base by 15%. So across the offices, the IMs and the financial planners are working well together, and that's really great to see. So again, as I said earlier, this is really early days. We've integrated the business from the first of July and I really look forward to talking to you more at the half year about the progress with that.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

So Andrew, we need more time, but hopefully those were helpful high level view of your three questions.

[Andrew Watson, Equity Research - General Financials at Singer Capital Markets]

That's great. Thank you very much.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thank you.

[Operator]

We currently have no questions coming through.

[Eva Hatfield, Director - IR at Brooks Macdonald Group]

We do have some questions submitted via the webcast. It's coming from Robin Savage at Zoosk Capital. Do you expect the FCA to look at the contractual relationships between discretionary fund management NPS providers, independent financial advisers and the retail investors in the FCA multi firm review? Should DSM MPS providers have contractual obligation to retail investors?

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

It's a great question.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

I'm not going to try and second guess that review. It's ongoing. In fact, we got an update yesterday from our audit team on progress, but essentially there is a wide market view of NPS. The scope is published and the contractual liabilities for us are really clear. So I'm not expecting material change in those for us.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

But again, the FAA has done a lot in our industry already to increase trust and confidence in the sector. And I'm also confident that they will continue to do that. So we will keep close to the review. We're not specifically part of the review, but as you would expect, we take all of the important parts into account when it's completed and we'll update you when it is.

[Eva Hatfield, Director - IR at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Thank you.

[Eva Hatfield, Director - IR at Brooks Macdonald Group]

There are no more questions on the webcast or the conference line. So I will hand over to Andrea for closing comments.

[Andrea Montague, CEO & Director at Brooks Macdonald Group]

Well, thank you all. It's great to speak this morning. As you will have seen, it's been a busy year and we're already delivering our full year 2026 priorities. I'm really excited about the opportunities ahead of us and look forward to the next call at the half year and enjoy the rest of your day.

[Operator]

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Eva Hatfield, Director - IR
• Andrea Montague, CEO & Director
• Katherine Jones, CFO & Director

Analysts

• Rahim Karim, Equity Analyst - Financial Services at Investec
• Ben Bathurst, Equity Research Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• Andrew Watson, Equity Research - General Financials at Singer Capital Markets