Rathbone Brothers maintains momentum

Wealth manager Rathbone Brothers delivered a solid performance in 2011, helped by underlying net operating income growth of 13 per cent to £135.1m - that's before including disposal gains of £1.1m. Moreover, total funds under management rose 1.4 per cent to £15.85bn during a period when the FTSE 100 index lost 6 per cent.

On the investment management side, funds under management were essentially flat at £14.76bn, as inflows of £1.97bn were countered by a £0.93bn negative equity performance and outflows of £0.87bn. However, increased charges introduced in March pushed net fee income up from £66.5m to £80.1m. This more than offset a 10 per cent rise in total staff costs and pushed the underlying cost to income ratio down from 68.5 per cent to 66.4 per cent.

Encouragingly, Rathbone Unit Trust Management reversed the previous year's 3.2 per cent fall in assets under management - it actually grew these by 9.6 per cent to £1.09bn. And, with annual management charges and net dealing profits both showing a rise, net operating income rose from £7.4m to £8.2m, although a rise in operating expenses left pre-tax profits here flat at £0.8m.

Numis Securities expects 2012 adjusted pre-tax profits of £44.1m and EPS of 83.5p (£46.2m and 79p in 2011).

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