WH Ireland Group plc
(“WH Ireland” or the “Company”)
Period End Trading Statement
Notice of Final Results
The Board of WH Ireland Group PLC today issues a trading statement for the 16 month period to 31 March 2018.
The Private Wealth Management division has continued its transition to an advice-led, fee-driven model. Our fee paying service propositions (Discretionary and Managed Advisory offerings) account for over 70% of our total assets under management as at the period end, helping to boost fee income by over 20% relative to the previous 12 months. Over the same period our wealth planning team has witnessed a 50% growth in fees . As expected, execution only assets have declined significantly as we introduce platform fees for the first time for this service proposition. Encouragingly recurring fee revenue now accounts for more than 60% of total revenue in this division; the division's focus on margin improvement will continue during the current financial year. Investment costs in regard to the operational platform changes have remained higher than expected during the final four month period, primarily as the resolution of legacy issues has taken longer than anticipated to complete. We believe that the full benefits of identified cost savings in this division will be a significant contributor to profitability in the current financial year.
As has already been widely reported by others in the sector, after a positive 2017 the Corporate and Institutional Broking division saw much reduced levels of transaction based fee income in the final few months of this reporting period. A number of these transactions were deferred and whilst the pipeline of potential new business remains solid delivery will, as always, be dependent upon prevailing market conditions. The division has been successful in being appointed as broker or Nomad to four new quoted companies since the beginning of 2018, in part as a result of our approach to MIFID ii and the wide distribution of our research product .The Investor Forum initiative (small private transactions) has begun to report a number of successful fund raises whilst market making and secondary commission flows have been maintained at a consistent level during this reporting period.
The combination of reduced transactions from the Corporate and Institutional Broking division and the continuation of higher costs in the Private Wealth Management division will result in an increased loss for the 16 month period from that reported at the second interim 12 month period ended 30 November 2017 (these estimates remain subject to audit).
Looking forward to the year ending 31 March 2019, the Board anticipates that the combination of lower costs in the Private Wealth Management division together with more normalised levels of transaction revenue from the Corporate and Institutional Broking division will lead to strong progress in the Group's profitability during the current financial year. A further update will be provided with the release of the final audited results in July.
Notice of final results
The final results for the 16 month period ended 31 March 2018, are anticipated to be released during the week commencing 16 July 2018.