Nucleus adds assets and customers but profit slips

David Ferguson

Shares of Edinburgh funds platform Nucleus Financial Group fell about 5% on Tuesday after it published results for the six months ended June 30, 2020, showing adjusted profit before tax fell 57% to £1.8 million.

Nonetheless, Nucleus Financial’s assets under administration rose 3.2% year-on-year to £15.8 billion.

Interim dividend will be 1p per share, down from 1.5p.

Nucleus showed a 3.3% increase in the number of active advisers from 1,383 to 1,428 over the last year and a 4.3% increase in customer numbers from 95,657 to 99,797 over the last year.

Nucleus Financial’s major shareholder is Sanlam Investments of South Africa.

Nucleus CEO David Ferguson said: “Covid-19 has clearly impacted investor sentiment over the first half of the year but despite this, we recovered most of the Q1 market fall in AUA by the end of the period and grew assets by 3.2% year-on-year and net revenue by 0.7% over the same period.

“During this time we have focused on those elements within our control and as such we continue to invest in our proposition to ensure we meet the future needs of our users.

“On that note, I’d like to thank our people who have maintained stable operations, deployed several notable platform enhancements and completed the development and launch of Nucleus IMX, our new model portfolio service. 

“IMX is rooted in a belief we can help customers achieve greater value for money and is therefore a natural extension to our strategy to create value through greater alignment of advisers and their customers.

“We expect good things from IMX over time and intend to continue investing in the development of our platform and service proposition for the long-term benefit of our users, their clients and our shareholders.

“While the impact of Covid-19 remains uncertain and continues to affect investor sentiment, customer numbers exceeded 100,000 after the period end, and trading has been in line with our post-Covid-19 expectations.

“I believe we are well positioned to win market share, grow our top line and expand our operating margin.”