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Royal Mail shares sale boost Hargreaves
The government’s sell-off of Royal Mail flotation helped the founders of Bristol firm Hargreaves Lansdown reap more than £68m in annual dividends.
The investment firm – which now manages more than £46billion in assets – revealed yesterday a strong rise in new business and rewarded its shareholders with a larger dividend pay-out.
Peter Hargreaves, who owns 32.18% of the firm, will make £45.7m while Stephen Lansdown, who owns 15.92%, according to Reuters, will receive £22.6m.
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The firm’s total number of clients also rose – by 144,000 to 652,000 – as it booked a 25% increase in net new business worth £6.4bn.
Hargreaves Lansdown, which calls itself the UK’s largest ‘investment supermarket’, handled just under a fifth of all applications for Royal Mail shares.
But its full-year profit growth fell slightly short of expectations and it failed to reassure investors about the impact of new rules on fees, sending its shares down 3% yesterday.
In its full-year statement to the London Stock Exchange, the firm said: “A busy year of stock market activity has been beneficial to Hargreaves Lansdown in terms of adding new clients and new business.
“Of particular note was the Royal Mail flotation, where around 118,000 people, approximately 18.5% of the UK public who invested in Royal Mail shares, did so through Hargreaves Lansdown.”
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