Financial services giant Quilter reported a strong performance last year, despite market volatility and uncertainty brought by the pandemic.
Assets under management and administration (AuMA) rose 7% to £117.8bn ($161bn, €132bn) compared with 2019, including average AuMA of £107.9bn – a 2% increase from the previous 12 months.
Quilter’s Investment Platform and Quilter International also reported strong growth with overall assets of £84.3bn.
The platform had £62.5bn AuMA in 2020, up from £57.5bn in 2019, and similarly, the international business increased assets by £1.2bn reaching £21.8bn at the end of last year.
No mention was made in the results about any resolution to the Quilter International strategic review.
The firm’s financial advice and wealth management arms, namely Quilter Investors and Quilter Cheviot, showed positive performance with overall assets growing to £48.5bn from £44.9bn in 2019.
More specifically, Quilter Cheviot held £25.3bn in assets under management and administration and Quilter Investors followed suit with £23.2bn.
‘Extraordinary’ year
The company completed the second client asset migration onto its platform in November 2020, which now holds around 80% of the UK Investment Platform assets – approximately £50bn.
The migration process is expected to be finalised by the end of February 2021, Quilter added.
Paul Feeney, chief executive at Quilter, said: “2020 was a year of unprecedented challenges in so many respects and one of extraordinary market volatility. It is in challenging times like these that our advice-based model comes to the fore and this is reflected through the higher levels of client retention experienced in 2020, at 92% versus 88% in 2019.
“We finished the year strongly with improved year-on-year net inflows, AuMA ending around 7% higher over the year, and modestly higher average AuMA over 2019, despite market volatility.
“I am particularly pleased by the consistent performance of our UK Platform throughout the year and with it delivering a good final quarter despite the major migration completing at the end of November.
“This is testament to the quality of our franchise coupled by the extraordinary planning and execution efforts from our teams to deliver a successful migration in a lockdown environment. Our learnings from this process underpin our confidence to continue with the final migration at the end of February.
“We continue to monitor colleague wellness closely to ensure we remain appropriately staffed for the migration event itself and the period following, in order that advisers and customers are supported to the level which both they and Quilter expect,” he added.
