Alpha Financial Markets’ profits fall in the first half of the year due to lower advisor utilization

17:23 11/22/23

Volume: 22,854 MM 200: n/a

expert advice Alpha Financial Markets said on Thursday that interim profits had fallen due to lower consultant utilization and investments in further team expansion.

Alpha Financial saw revenue rise 7.5% to £115.6m in the half-year, while net fee income rose 8.5%, mainly due to organic growth.

However, the AIM-listed company reported underlying profit of £20.1m, down from £22.5m a year earlier, while profit before tax fell from £14.2m to 10 due to higher acquisition-related costs £.8m fell.

The number of advisors rose 14.1% year-on-year to 1,051, while Alpha FMC’s number of clients rose to 971 from 787 a year ago. Alpha’s sales cycle, on the other hand, lengthened over the course of the half year.

Chief executive Luc Baqué said: “As communicated in June and outlined in our pre-market trading update, we have experienced a longer sales cycle and increased competition due to excess capacity in the global advisory market. The current market remains challenging but continues to evolve.” Rebalancing.

“With our unique value proposition and unrivaled advisory team, we continue to see strong customer demand and enter the second half of the year with a strong pipeline. We remain well positioned for future growth in the medium to long term, in line with our ambitions to double the business again by 2028.”

Alpha FMC also maintained its interim dividend at 3.70 pence per share.

At 09:25 GMT, Alpha FMC shares were down 1.26% at 353.0p.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert on Sharecast.com