Alliance Trust Savings has reported its first profit in a decade, following £93million of investment since losses began to mount.
The 30-year-old Dundee-based savings business, which accounts for most of the trust’s 250 headcount in Dundee, said it had made a £400,000 profit in the first half of 2016, following a £1.1m loss in the same period lastyear.
Alliance Trust said in March that ATS had lost £5.2m in 2015, but its value had been uprated to £54m, whilst aggregate losses since 2006 had been £92.9m.
The group has now reported a 40per cent rise in assets under administration to £12bn at June 30, and a 31 per cent net increase in customer accounts to over 26,000.
It said: “This growth was driven by the completion of the Stocktrade acquisition alongside further organic growth in both the direct and advised channels.”
Alliance paid £14m to Brewin Dolphin for Stocktrade 15 months ago, acquiring 50 new staff and almost £10m of annual revenue, 43,000 customers and £4.3bn of assets.
Earlier this year ATS became an autonomous division with its own board, following the shake-up which saw Alliance Trust adopt a wholly non-executive board without responsibility for the loss-making savings and investment subsidiaries, which were given profitability targets.
In June, after admitting that a merger approach had been made by RIT Capital Partners, the trust’s chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin said a strategic review of the options for the group was under way
Patrick Mill, chief executive of ATS, said: “Delivering a profit at the half year mark demonstrates the success of our business strategy and the appeal of our flat fee model to both direct and advised customers.”
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