Mattioli Woods reports positive first-half performance

(Sharecast News) - Wealth and asset management firm Mattioli Woods reported positive first-half performance in an update on Tuesday, despite challenging market conditions. The AIM-traded company said revenue in the six months ended 30 November increased 8%, reaching £59.1m, compared to £54.9m during the same period in the prior year.

It said that growth was attributed to resilient trading performance in the face of a difficult macroeconomic environment.

The firm said it achieved organic revenue growth of 4%, supported by a robust new business pipeline.

Notably, Mattioli Woods secured 374 new clients, with a total asset value of £82.2m.

Total client assets of the group remained stable at £15.2bn, only slightly down from the previous year's £15.3bn, primarily due to a £155m reduction caused by market movements.

The company said it anticipated historically higher revenue in the second half of the financial year, driven by year-end activities and the weighting of pension fund client year ends.

Mattioli Woods said it was making progress in implementing a new group-wide customer relationship management (CRM) system.

The firm said it was focussed on enhancing operational efficiency, cost management, and delivering intra-group synergies to boost profit margins.

Additionally, recent acquisitions were successfully integrated into the business, with the company seeing a promising pipeline of potential bolt-on acquisition opportunities.

As of the end of the reporting period, Mattioli Woods maintained a strong financial position, with £32.7m in cash.

The company's outlook for the current year remained consistent with management's expectations.

"I am pleased to report revenue growth in the first six months of this financial year, despite the challenging macroeconomic backdrop that continues to affect client sentiment and market value of clients' assets," said chief executive officer Ian Mattioli.

"Revenues were 8% higher and the group delivered organic revenue growth of 4%, reflecting the resilient nature of our revenue model combining fee-based revenues for specialist advice and administration with ad-valorem investment management revenues linked to the value of clients' assets, despite a slight fall in the value of client assets under advice and administration during the period.

"We enjoyed particularly strong growth within our core pension consultancy and employee benefits business segments, with the proposed changes to pension and tax rules announced in the Chancellor's recent Autumn Statement driving strong demand for advice."

Mattioli said the company continued to focus on the integration of recently acquired businesses, with the realisation of revenue synergies across the group remaining a priority.

"We also completed a detailed review of our current investment offering for clients during the period which has identified opportunities for enhancing group revenues whilst reducing clients' costs.

"Our focus will now shift to implementing these strategic changes for the benefit of both our clients and shareholders."

At 1232 GMT, shares in Mattioli Woods were down 3% at 582p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.