InvestmentsFeb 21 2019

Acquisition helps Rathbones assets reach £44bn

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Acquisition helps Rathbones assets reach £44bn

The acquisition of Spiers and Jeffrey boosted the assets under management of Rathbones during 2018.

Total assets under administration were £44.1bn by the end of the year, compared with £39.1bn at the end of December 2017.

The asset growth came from £1.1bn of net inflows, higher than the £900m seen in 2017, while the acquisition of Spiers and Jeffrey added £6.7bn.

These assets generated a net income of £275.3m, compared with £254m for 2017. The acquisition of Spiers and Jeffrey contributed £8.7m.

The company recorded a profit before tax of £87.4m, up 4.7 per cent on 2017.

Mark Nicholls, Rathbones' chairman, said: "Brexit is likely to be one of the most significant political and economic events to impact the United Kingdom in our lifetimes. The lack of consensus on the United Kingdom's strategy for the future creates unprecedented levels of uncertainty and the longer term implications will not be clear for some time.

But he added: "As a UK business with no operations in other European Union countries, no material dependencies on goods or people from other European Union countries and a predominantly UK client base, we anticipate that the operational impacts on our business will be relatively small."

Though he did acknowledge that Brexit could have an impact on the value of Rathbones' funds under management.

In November Rathbones announced chief executive Philip Howell would be retiring in May and be replaced by Paul Stockton, who is currently the company's finance director.  

david.thorpe@ft.com