LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - AJ Bell reported total assets under administration of £74.1bn at the end of its second quarter on Thursday - up 14% over last year, but down 2% in the quarter due to adverse market and other movements of 4%.
The FTSE 250 investment platform noted that during the quarter, the FTSE All-Share Index fell by 0.5% while the MSCI World Index fell by 5.5%.

Total customer numbers increased to 418,309 - up 21% over the last year and 5% in the quarter, with total net inflows in the quarter of £1.5bn.

Looking at the platform business, customer numbers increased 20,109 in the quarter to close at 403,383 - up 21% in the last year and 5% in the quarter.

Advised customers totalled 137,201, up 16% in the last year and 4% in the quarter, while direct-to-consumer (D2C) customers stood at 266,182, up 25% in the last year and 6% in the quarter.

Assets under administration in the division closed at £66.9bn - up 15% in the last year and down 2% in the quarter.

Gross inflows in the period totalled £2.7bn, and net inflows stood at £1.6bn, compared to £2.8bn and £1.8bn year-on-year.

In AJ Bell Investments, assets under management closed at £2.3bn - up 64% over the last year, and ahead 10% over the quarter.

Net inflows in the division totalled £223m, compared to £311m at the same time last year.

"Our dual-channel platform, serving the growing advised and D2C platform markets, attracted over 20,000 new customers and significant net inflows during the second quarter despite weakened investor sentiment," said chief executive officer Andy Bell.

"In the last year we have grown platform customer numbers by 21% and platform assets under administration by 15%, demonstrating the strength of our business model across different market conditions.

"Although our D2C customers invested slightly less via our platform than in the comparative period as they assess the impact of the rising cost of living, net inflows to our advised platform remained on par with last year, which was a strong comparative."

Bell said net platform inflows of £1.6bn was an "encouraging result" given the uncertain market backdrop.

"Our in-house investment solutions remain popular across our platform propositions and continue to perform strongly, delivering net inflows of £223m during the quarter.

"Our first five multi-asset funds recently passed their fifth anniversary - an important performance milestone particularly for advisers.

"Performance of all five funds was in the top 30% when compared against their peer groups, with four being in the top quintile."

Since launching the funds in 2017, Andy Bell said the company had shared the benefits of its increasing scale with customers, reducing the ongoing charges figure to 31 basis points from 50 points during that time.

"This week we launched a new investing app called Dodl by AJ Bell which expands our offering to DIY investors.

"It offers all the main tax wrappers and a simplified investment range to help people select funds and shares for their portfolio."

Bell said the launch of Dodl in the consumer market would be complemented by the launch of 'Touch by AJ Bell' - a simplified platform being developed for the advised market.

"These developments will broaden our reach in both the advised and D2C segments, keeping us at the forefront of the platform market and positioning us well to continue gaining market share."

AJ Bell said it would announce its full results for the six months ended 31 March on 26 May.

At 0920 BST, shares in AJ Bell were down 2.49% at 283.75p.

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