By Simon Jessop
LONDON (Reuters) - UK fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown (L:HRGV) posted a strong rise in full-year new business on Wednesday, thanks to buoyant equity market activity, and upped its total dividend by 8 percent.
The company said net new business rose 25 percent to 6.4 billion pounds and it added 144,000 new clients in the year to end-June, helping boost total assets under administration by 29 percent to 46.9 billion.
Among the events helping boost new business was the listing of Royal Mail (L:RMG) and the launch of a new fund by 'star' fund manager Neil Woodford, the company said.
"A busy year of stock market activity has been beneficial to Hargreaves Lansdown in terms of adding new clients and new business. Of particular note was the Royal Mail flotation, where around 118,000 people, approximately 18.5 percent of the UK public who invested in Royal Mail shares, did so throughHargreaves Lansdown," it said.
At the launch of the Woodford fund, meanwhile, 40 percent of all the new money invested came through Hargreaves Lansdown, it added.
As a result, net revenue increased 8 percent to 291.9 million pounds and operating profit rose a similar amount to 208 million pounds. The margin on net revenue, however, dipped slightly to 71.3 percent from 71.5 percent in the previous year.
That helped boost pretax profit by 7 percent to 195.2 million and underpinned an 8 percent rise in the total dividend to 32 pence a share, made up of a second interim ordinary dividend of 15.39 pence and an increased special dividend of 9.61 pence a share.
(Reporting by Simon Jessop, Editing by Pamela Barbaglia)