Royal Mail IPO sparks a rush at Hargreaves
HARGREAVES Lansdown yesterday announced stellar quarterly results after benefiting from “an immense” influx of investor cash in the run-up to the Royal Mail flotation.
“In addition to interest from existing clients, a large proportion of our Royal Mail investors were new clients, many investing for the first time,” said chief executive Ian Gorham. “Some will have used our services solely for facilitating short-term Royal Mail profits, but we expect to retain most as new investors.”
The Bristol-based investment service made a net gain of 20,000 clients during the three months to 30 September, with net inflows more than doubling to £1.2bn.
Although the company was boosted by demand for Royal Mail shares, the full scale of the rush to invest in the postal service will only be reflected in the next quarterly results update. Hargreaves Lansdown angered many investors last Friday when its systems struggled to cope with the demand to offload shares in the company, meaning dealing was unavailable for much of the day.
Total assets under management grew £2.9bn to £39.3bn during the three months.