Standard Life topped the FTSE-100 leader board yesterday as it charmed the City with another set of impressive quarterly figures showing strong sales growth and record investment inflows.
Standard's shares were up 8% after it unveiled better-than- expected performance across key areas, including a 24% sales rise against expectations of 6%, and £3 billion pulled in by Standard Life Investments, a rise of 161%.
The group's assets under administration were up 7% at £233bn, four-fifths from market movements, but net inflows of £2.8bn were well above analysts' forecasts. Long-term savings new business sales were up 24% at £6.3bn while net flows were up 26% at £1.4bn.
At SLI, there was a 9% rise to £90.4bn in assets managed for third parties, which overtook in-house assets for the first time earlier this year.
The award-winning MyFolio investment platform launched only last year continued to attract strong interest, racking up another 23% rise in assets to £2.8bn.
The group's capital surplus of £4.2bn was up by more than £1bn on a year ago, and ahead of the £4.1bn at the year end, even after the payment of the final dividend along with the special 12.8p dividend to shareholders.
Standard was well placed for the UK's retail distribution review (RDR) which this year outlawed commission payments to advisers, and for the other major development of auto-enrolment into pensions.
David Nish, chief executive, said: "Our UK business had a good start to the year, and while the industry continues to see disruption as a result of the introduction of RDR, we have made a smooth transition to operating under the new regulatory environment with encouraging early indicators from both our corporate and retail customers and their advisers."
Jackie Hunt, finance director, said: "It is a genuine outperformance and a record quarter in some aspects of our business."
She added: "If we manage our costs on the UK as we did in 2012, and gather more assets in, we would expect to see the contribution from the UK business grow over the future period of time."
However, the group says early experience of auto-enrolment is encouraging, with lower-than- anticipated opt-outs and higher contribution rates. On RDR, Ms Hunt said: "We are now seeing some advisers who moved away from us when we stopped paying commission starting to rebuild the relationship, so there are early positive signs."
Ms Hunt said Standard's model of asset-gathering rather than taking risk on the balance sheet meant it was "well positioned for different markets at a time when regulatory pressure is forcing significant capital charges on others who have different business models".
She said investment last year in IT and systems had equipped Standard Life to grow capacity, while SLI had been building asset capability and also geographic diversity, where its focus on the US was starting to pay off.
Mr Nish added: "Canada has maintained momentum in its fee business and remains well placed in the growing pension market."
The shares firmed 28.2p to 380.7p.
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