Hargreaves Lansdown has appointed M&G Wealth’s deputy chief executive officer as financial advice director.
Caldicott was previously at M&G for 11 years, where he was director of wealth solutions transformation, chief of staff for wealth solutions, and finally deputy CEO of M&G Wealth, a position he held for three years.
As the savings and investment experience continues to be digitised there are huge opportunities to leverage digital development.Richard Caldicott, HLClient director at HL Ian Hunter said Caldicott's background in developing digital-led strategies that focus on client experience within the Financial Advice sector was something the firm is “really excited” about.
He said: “His experience and approach align with the exciting strategy we have for our Financial Advice offering and his experience will help to drive and improve this offering to clients. I look forward to working with him to develop our advisory services.”
In its full year results this morning (August 5), Hargreaves Lansdown said it would pilot its “augmented advice” service in the first half of next year, after announcing the plans earlier this year.
Caldicott said it was exciting to be joining HL at “such a pivotal time in their evolution”.
“As the savings and investment experience continues to be digitised there are huge opportunities to leverage digital development, alongside our advisers, to improve the advice experience,” he said.
Results
Hargreaves Lansdown added 92,000 new clients in the year to June 30, taking its total client number to a record high of 1.74mn.
The average age of new clients is 36, bringing an average of £15,600 to the platform.
Hargreaves Lansdown chief executive Chris Hill said the “difficult backdrop” in 2022 had hit markets and dented investor confidence throughout the year.
“As we have seen across the industry, this has led not only to reduced asset values, but also to subdued flows for many direct-to-consumer services and lower activity across wealth management as a whole,” he said.
Hill said in recent years the platform has seen clients diversifying their portfolios, and increasing their weightings to the US, China and tech stocks, particularly on the Nasdaq.
The market turmoil led to the company's assets under management dropping by 9 per cent to £123.8bn, compared to a 30 per cent rise at the same point last year to £135.5bn.
Pre-tax profit slumped 26 per cent to £269.2mn, though the company increased its dividend by 3 per cent to 39.7p per share.
sally.hickey@ft.com
