Rowanmoor's self-invested personal pension (Sipp) administration business, Rowanmoor Personal Pensions, has reported a 359 per cent increase in pre-tax profits during the 2018 financial year.
The subsidiary of the Embark Group saw pre-tax profits grow to £0.78m for year ended 31 December 2018, up from £0.17m in 2017.
Rowanmoor stated a focus on its two main Sipp products, the full Sipp and the Family Pension Trust, had helped grow revenues.
However, refocusing the product line during 2018 had led to client numbers remaining unchanged year-on-year, it added.
But the business benefitted from parent Embark’s efforts to integrate and align its various businesses.
David King, managing director of Rowanmoor, said: "Being part of large specialist pension and platform business has enabled material improvement in our operations, cost base and service delivery over the course of 2018.
"We are very pleased to report strong profit growth and our continued desire to reinvest for future business growth, in what remains a highly attractive long-term Sipp market."
Phil Smith, group chief executive of the Embark Group said: "The market for complex Sipps is currently both exceptionally competitive and in a point of turmoil. To report such solid numbers is a testament to the focus of the Rowanmoor team.
"As we continue to leverage our group strengths into Rowanmoor, we believe its financial performance will come on in leaps and bounds."
In March, Rowanmoor made changes to some of its Sipp charges, introducing a fee for due diligence and ongoing work on complex investments.
The provider will charge a one-off fee of £500 plus tax for carrying out detailed due diligence on the investment and investment provider before accepting new business.
On an ongoing basis it will charge an annual fee of £150 for due diligence carried out on new and existing investments.
Meanwhile Embark has announced that its small self administered schemes (Ssas) business, Rowanmoor Executive Pensions, has reported a 44.4 per cent increase in pre-tax profitability in the year, to £1.18m from £820,000 the year before.
Rowanmoor stated that it views Ssas as a long-term service offering across various parts of the business and growth in 2019 is already projected to be along similar lines to that in 2018.
Mr Smith said: "The market for Ssas-based pensions is complex, and does not enjoy the growth rates seen in either the Sipp or platform space.
"The business is now perfectly set to dominate both organically and inorganically in the future - this is not a market for ‘cottage industry’ players."
Last month, personal pension administrator Embark Services reported a profits increase of 107 per cent following growth in its digital business.
Embark Solutions, which is also owned by Embark, posted a pre-tax profit of £290,000, up from £140,000 the previous year while client numbers increased 15 per cent to 2,028.
The company said the reason for the increase was partly due to its transition from a self-invested personal pension and small self administered scheme administrator to providing more digitally-executed retirement services.
Embark also released results for its other subsidiary, EBS Pensions last month.
According to the company’s results for 2018, EBS posted a pre-tax profit of £1.55m after making a loss of £0.12m in the previous year.
Client numbers increased 89 per cent to 31,452 in the year.
It stated this was partly due to the acquisition of the Option Sipp in late 2018 which significantly increased the size and reach of the business.
amy.austin@ft.com
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