In the first half of this year, corporate brokers and nominated advisors benefited from £3.7bn of fundraisings on Aim, but in the past four months only £1.1bn has been raised. WH Ireland has 93 corporate clients, up from 85 a year ago, so with a number of proposed corporate and M&A transactions delayed until next year, inevitably this has impacted W.H. Ireland’s fee income and profits from this activity.
In addition, revenue from the company’s private client wealth management business suffered from lower than expected dealing commission in the latter part of the financial year to end November 2014, albeit this was in part mitigated by a double digit increase in management fee income. Political uncertainties - the Scottish Independence vote and the Eurozone growth scare in October - undoubtedly made investors more cautious and this has been reflected in lower dealing activity in the latter part of the financial year.