The company, which operates a Gibraltar-domiciled Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pensions Scheme, saw its pensions division report turnover of £8m, up from £5.9m in 2013, accounting for half of the group’s total turnover.
Chief executive Colin Porter said: “As expected, Gibraltar has now become a well-established QROPS market and I’m pleased to note that STM, having been in this market since its infancy, has managed to maintain its position as market leader.”
Gibraltar was confirmed as a QROPS jurisdiction by HM Revenue & Customs, the UK’s tax office, in September 2012, and has seen a variety of local schemes open up since.
Last year, the jurisdiction altered its local legislation to allow a swift variation of the 30% limit on how much can be withdrawn from a QROPS as a lump sum, giving it the potential to quickly adapt to HMRC’s introduction of full flexibility on QROPS from April 6 this year.
Porter added that while its QROPS in Malta, another popular domiciliary for overseas pensions, remains “by far” the larger of its two QROPS offerings, growth last year came predominately from Gibraltar.
Life
STM also saw revenue increase by over 100% in its life division, STM Life, reaching £1.4m in 2014 from £0.6m.
“New life business is being generated from a range of intermediaries and across a wide spread of products,” said Porter. “New business continues to grow in this area which, together with annual management fees, will provide solid and steady revenue for 2015 and beyond.”
Porter said the group planned to further this new business in 2015 by entering markets in Asia, South Africa, and the Middle East.
He said the company would be conducting a variety of business development trips into Asia and the Middle East over the year and would be re-domiciling someone into South Africa.
“Our model is scalable and we wish to take it into new jurisdictions,” he added.
Development
The group, which also provides corporate and trustee services, saw its total revenue increase by 19% to £15.0m from £13.4m in 2013.
Meanwhile, its profit before taxation soared by 635% to reach £1.7m on the £0.3m it saw in 2013.
Chairman Michael Riddell said the large jump can be explained by STM’s development over 2014 into a multi-disciplinary international financial services provider from a predominantly corporate trustee services led business.
“STM has previously been successful in driving revenue growth, however, this year I am pleased to say that we can also see significant increases in profitability,” he said.
“Consequently, this has had a positive impact on our cash balances which has allowed us to reduce our earnings. Additionally, it has allowed the business to invest further in increasing our distribution network.”
