Brooks Macdonald Group plc (BRK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Welcome to our results for the half year to 31st of December 2020. Our half year results last year were one of the last meetings we did face-to-face, and it's been an unprecedented 12 months. Now hopefully with the vaccine rollout, we will be back to some kind of normality soon and I look forward to seeing you in person next time. As always, we're joined by Ben Thorpe, our FD, who will go through the financials after I cover some introductory points. And after Ben, I will close followed by Q&A, as usual. So turning to our first slide, I am delighted to report strong first half results. We've delivered exactly what we said we would in both financial performance and strategic progress. While with everybody else, we've continued to navigate the COVID restrictions and lockdowns. We're also seeing the benefits of the investments we have made in recent years, and we're now a more robust business. And that strength has really allowed us to focus during this time on delivering for clients and advisers, including strong investment performance for client portfolios against a volatile market backdrop, and we've consistently outperformed benchmarks over both the short and the longer term. For our half year financial performance, we're reporting record FUM and a significantly increased profit margin, which Ben will tell you all about shortly. Our dividend is up, demonstrating balance sheet strength and our Board's confidence in the business. So overall, we've achieved what we set out to do in 2017, delivering sustainable value-enhancing growth. And we're now entering the next phase of our strategy as a leading investment manager for intermediaries. Moving on to the next slide. I'm really proud of how the strategy is delivering for all stakeholders against this challenging backdrop, really reflecting our purpose of realizing ambitions and securing futures. By successfully adapting the ways we communicate and engage, we've strengthened our relationships with advisers and clients, resulting in, for example, high demand for our specialist services, which are now approaching GBP 1 billion of FUM with responsible investment service growing 50% through the period. And new IFA relationships with 10% of UKIM inflows coming from advisers we haven't worked with before. We've also focused on and invested in our people during the pandemic with increasing engagement scores. We've continued our Protect to Thrive approach most recently providing increased flexibility, particularly for those balancing family demand such as home schooling. And we're now focused on planning for the return to the office, balancing the flexibility of homeworking with the benefits of time together, which is really important to us as a relationship business. We're continuing our ongoing investment in our people with new hires. We've increased client and adviser-facing employee numbers in UKIM and international from 108 at the end of 2019 to 130 at the end of 2020. Finally, we're making progress on our journey as a responsible corporate citizen and have taken positive steps forward during the period. And a couple of examples I'd like to highlight. First, we've signed the UN principles for responsible investment in September. And second, and one that I'm particularly proud of is the BM Foundation, which is run by and funded by our people with matching contributions from group. And we know that our donations have been particularly important to charities during the pandemic. I look forward to updating you further on our CSR strategy and activities at the full year. So overall, you can see that we've continued to deliver for all stakeholders over the last 6 months. And on that note, I'll hand over to Ben.

Good morning, everyone. Turning to my first slide, Slide 8. In summary, we've had a good period delivering strong financial results, including both record profit and margin. This was driven by the successful integration of our 2 recent acquisitions and our disciplined approach to cost management. Turning to the numbers themselves. Revenue was up by 1.8% to GBP 55.9 million. We again have a record underlying profit, up by 21.7% to GBP 14 million. We also have record underlying margin, up a material 420 basis points to 25.1%. Statutory profit is up by 83% to GBP 14.1 million. And yes, it is higher than underlying profit, but I'll come back to that later. Earnings per share is up by 8.2%, and the interim dividend is up by 9.5% to 23p, showing our continued confidence in the strength of the business. Turning to Slide 9. We have 2 graphs here. The one on the right showing total funds under management position over the last 2.5 years. And you can see that we now have record FUM of GBP 15.5 billion and a compound annual growth rate north of 15% over the period. On the right, we show the movement in FUM for both net flows and acquisitions for the last 6 quarters. And you can see the acquisitions have more than offset outflows. And also very importantly, it shows momentum is building on net flows and we do expect to be back into positive territory for H2. I also need to call out that not only have the acquisitions added funds under management, but they have also added to our product offering. For example, the Cornelian risk managed funds. And they also brought with them a highly skilled and motivated set of people to complement the many we already had. Turning to Slide 10. I'm pleased to say the 2 recent acquisitions are performing well with integration now complete and synergies delivered. We have 2 bridges on the page, the top one showing year-on-year movement by contributing business; and the second showing the associated movements in EPS. As expected, the acquisition drove the increase in underlying profit in the period and more than offset a slight decline in the core business. The decline in the core was due to a reduction in non-fee income, which as guided was impacted by lower interest rates and also lower fee income off the back of recent outflows. The good news is that we pretty much offset all this decline with cost reductions. These included the benefit of moving to our new head office, where I am sitting today, and a lower change spend given the completion of much of our remediation efforts and also lower T&E spend given COVID-19 travel restrictions. The bottom graph looks at EPS, showing the contribution of the various parts plus I think it hopefully reminds everyone of the diluted impact of the shares we issued to fund the Cornelian acquisition. So I'll now turn to Slide 11, the segmental analysis. Both U.K. Investment Management and Financial Planning improved their performance in the period and international held steady. However, given the addition of Lloyds, we would expect a much stronger second half from international. You will have also seen the recent announcement about integrating FP into U.K. Investment Management. And therefore, this will be the last time that this is shown as a segment, although we will start to provide more color on the performance of our direct private client offering going forward. And as a reminder, the reason we are integrating FP into UKIM is to continue to deliver private clients but also ensure we are set up to maximize the capture of the opportunity going forward. Turning to Page 12 and income yield. Overall, the yield did fall as per guidance, driven by the impact of lower interest rates on nonfee income. The graph on the left shows the overall mix and the discrete yields by product and service. The 2 graphs on the top right show the mix for BPS and international. And as you can see, in both cases, that field yield was stable or increasing. The bottom right graph attributes the yield reduction by category. And in addition to the nonfee impact, we did also have limited impact in the funds business due to outflows in our defensive capital fund which has a slightly higher yield than the rest of the funds book. Going forward, we expect discrete yields to remain broadly stable for H2. Turning to Slide 13 on costs. Cost discipline and the finalization of synergies remained a key focus for the half. Excluding acquisitions, costs fell by 9%. However, it is very important to stress that we continue to invest for growth whether it be in headcount, technology or marketing, for example. However, savings elsewhere in the half have more than offset these increases. As I mentioned earlier, the bulk of the reduction in costs came from the completion of our remediation efforts and structural improvements in the shape of our cost base. As always, we remain focused on cost management, and our approach is to continue to find efficiencies to fund further investment in enhancing the adviser and client experience. Turning to Slide 14 on statutory profit. Pretax statutory profit was up by 83% to GBP 14.1 million. The new item on the page is the accounting gain on the purchase of the Lloyds Channel Island business. This simply means that the value of the intangible assets we acquired is GBP 5 million greater than what we paid. This is a pretty rare occurrence in accounting, but I think it does show that we've got a very good deal. Integration costs are pretty much all Lloyds related with all the work done pre-November's completion. Therefore, there's not going to be much more on this line in H2. The amortization charge is up given the recent acquisitions, and we'd expect the annual charge for next year onwards to be approximately GBP 5.5 million per annum. And on tax, this simply increased in line with profits. So overall, a very strong statutory profit performance. Looking at the bottom section of the page. Cash generation in the period was again strong, even after taking account of the fact we purchased Lloyds Channel Islands business from our own funds. And finally, and certainly not least, we remain well capitalized. Turning to my final slide, which is on guidance. On flows, we continue to expect the group to be back into net positive territory for H2, although this may be more weighted towards Q4 than Q3 as BPS conversion rates are somewhat slower given the impact of lockdown. I am pleased to say that Brooks Macdonald Investment Solutions or BMIS pipeline is very strong and continues to build. International has got good underlying momentum, and Lloyds is starting to make a difference. But we do expect net outflows in H2 and in particular Q4, given the expected loss of a large low-yielding institutional mandate. And this is simply because they want to move to a style of money management that we just don't offer, which means more akin to active day trading in nature. On incoming yields, we are expecting yields to remain broadly stable on a discrete basis with some limited mix impact at the total group level as we expect much of this year's net growth to come in MPS platform and BMIS. On cost for H2, we expect to spend at similar levels to H1, but with our place for the inclusion of Lloyds of approximately GBP 2.5 million and up to GBP 3 million for the FSCS levy, which is second half loaded. We expect CapEx levels for H2 to be like H1, and the guidance of GBP 5 million remains unchanged. Given where the share price was at times in H1, our employee benefit trust took the opportunity to top up and purchase more shares. And we have therefore, increased guidance by GBP 1 million to GBP 5 million. Overall, we are happy with the current consensus for FY '21 and expect both EPS and underlying profit to be in line. So in conclusion, another strong half with more to come in H2. Thank you for listening. And I'll now hand you back to Caroline.

Thank you, Ben. As I said at the start, the investment we've made and the actions we've taken over recent years are bearing fruit and have delivered what we set out to do through our strategy announced in 2017. The shape and health of our business today reflects that. And importantly, we continue to deliver on our commitment to increase profit margin. We're now moving to a new phase of our strategy as the leading investment manager for intermediaries focused on accelerating growth and value accretion. And there are significant market opportunities underpinned by all the known demographic and policy changes, also increased outsourcing by advisers and the COVID disruption over the last year is only reinforcing this. And the role of a wealth manager has never been more important, and we are uniquely positioned in the market with our focus on advisers. We're now a stronger business, well placed to capitalize on these positive trends and the continued demand for products and services and build on our increasing momentum. Overall, the outlook is good, and we're confident in the future. Now turning to the next slide, which will be a familiar one to many. I'll just quickly recap the next phase of our strategy that I presented in September, important just to remind you on the key growth drivers. First is organic growth, which is all about differentiating through transforming our adviser experience to be best-in-class and delivering excellent client service, which complements our already compelling proposition and our strong investment performance. Second, service and operational excellence, which is all about being easy to do business with, also greater efficiency, resilience and scalability. And third is selective high-quality M&A, which complements our organic strategy with the confidence that we have a platform that supports easy integration and rapid capture of cost synergies, which I think we've evidenced by the successful integration of both Cornelian and Lloyds. And of course, this is all enabled by our people, our most important asset. And the ongoing success of our strategy is predicated on attracting, engaging and retaining leading talent to which we are fully committed. Now I'm just going to take a moment to look at how our strong performance is playing out in each of our businesses. Firstly, UKIM. We saw improved net flows in Q2 versus Q1, and continued positive momentum into H2. And I think really encouragingly, the number of BPS new business proposals in February was the highest in the past 12 months. And as well as supporting existing advisers, we've also been building new relationships and 30% of our contact in Q2 was with advisers new to BM. We're seeing increased demand also for our BM investment solutions offering as we partner with IFAs in a way that best supports the success of their business. And we've had several major wins with FUM landing through 2021. And also in International, we now have a right-sized business that's focused with a high-performing team with multichannel capability and a comprehensive offering. And with the Lloyds acquisition now integrated, it's added nearly GBP 900 million in FUM, 1,000 clients, a fund range and also experienced people to complement our already strong team. We're also seeing significant emerging opportunities from the referral agreement between the 2 businesses. So overall, across the group, it's been a strong first half. Momentum and pipeline are building while we're mindful of the near-term uncertainty until we're out of lockdown. Now we're also making progress in our partnership with SS&C, which we signed in October and which is a critical enabler of our strategy. This is a really exciting step forward, bringing new capabilities and digital tools with a positive impact on all 3 of our growth drivers, including developing a market-leading digital experience for intermediaries and clients making us easy to do business with and creating a scalable platform. And it's fantastic to be working with the business with such a depth of knowledge and expertise and one that is so highly innovative. And good progress has been made already. We've transferred our administration processes to SS&C in early December with 55 staff moving across retaining operational teams with a client focus in BM. And we're well underway with other deliverables, including new front office technology, an onboarding solution, a new portal and CRM system. And we expect to complete the transition to the SS&C platform by the end of 2021. So to conclude, a strong start to the financial year across all fronts. We're well positioned to benefit from the positive market dynamics, particularly as we emerge from lockdown, but it's also been proven that we can successfully navigate short-term uncertainty. We remain confident in our growth agenda and continued delivery for all stakeholders. We have a great team in place, ambitious in what we can achieve and energized by what we are already delivering for clients and advisers. We're committed to value creation, which is demonstrated by the ongoing increase in our profit margin. But most of all, we're confident in our vision for Brooks Macdonald as the leading investment manager for intermediaries. Thank you, and we'll now be happy to take your questions.

And the first question is from the line of Paul McGinnis of Shore Capital.

A couple of questions partly on flows and partly on pricing. It was interesting to hear your comment there in terms of proposals or propositions for BPS being particularly strong in February. I was just wondering, do we think that you're now at the stage where the impact from departure of various investment managers is now fully sort of played out in terms of impact on flows? And therefore, going forward, do you see any reason why you shouldn't be able to sort of get back to the kind of growth levels of sort of 5% plus in terms of contribution from organic flows? That was that question. And then just moving on to pricing. I think Ben's comment was that you expect yields to be stable on a discrete basis in the second half versus the first half. Just wondering, any expectations sort of beyond that in terms of where you're seeing the pinch points on pricing? It doesn't look like it's in BPS. Just wonder whether the MPS pricing skirmishing is now playing out as well.

Great. Thanks, Paul. Well, let me just pick up more generally on the flows, and then I'll hand over to Ben to be -- to give more specifics on that on the yield. I mean, I think as we've talked about quite extensively in the past, in 2019, the business went through a significant transformation and the investment in actions we took through that time was really all about setting out off for success, and we're seeing that bearing fruit now. But as we all know that, that caused disruption through and outflows like that in terms of coming through the tail end of 2019 and into 2020. I think where we feel we are as a business is that through 2020, we've been very stable from our people angle. In fact, we have been investing in our people. We've increased our client and adviser-facing teams in UKIM and international from 108 at the end of 2019 to 130 at the end of 2020. So a significant investment there. And I think what you're now seeing come through, and it didn't just start in February, it's been building over recent months, is that mix, that powerful mix in the teams of those that have got a lot of BM experience and those that have brought sort of fresh insights and new relationships into those teams. That mix and combination really delivering sort of the uplift in inflows coming through. So I think we still will get a -- there's a small tail still coming through in H2, but we very much are at that tipping point. And as we've said, we expect to be modestly positive in net flows for H2. The one thing I think we've all got to be mindful of, and this is just linked to the lockdown that we're in is that we are seeing very good activity in proposal levels for BPS. But we know that until we can get this face-to-face meetings and until our IFAs can meet face-to-face with clients, BPS, in particular, we are seeing a longer conversion time from the first conversation until the new business coming in, and that's just a function of not being able to meet face-to-face. And so probably 4 or 5 Zooms have to do rather than 1 or 2 face-to-face meetings. We saw in September how that shifted very rapidly when people could meet in person, and we'd expect that to happen again as soon as lockdown restrictions ease. So Ben, let me pass over to you on the on the number side of things.

Yes. Absolutely. Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. In terms of the 5% plus, I think mid-single digits is a good place to be going forward. And yes, that's what I would assume. In terms of pricing, there will be, as you say, on a discrete basis, we expect them to be stable, but we do expect the bulk of growth in H2 to come from Brooks Macdonald Investment Solutions and MPS on platform which is yielding around 20 to 25 basis points. So that would clearly have a mix at the group level -- mix impact at the group level. In terms of pricing pressure, I think you're absolutely right. We're not seeing anything in particular at the moment. And if anything, we have seen, we've addressed, you'll recall that we did lower our MPS platform in the middle of last year. And we've also, in January removed VAT from MPS as well to put -- to get us on to the level playing field with everyone else. So I don't think there's anything significant on the horizon other than what we've already guided.

The next question is from Ben Bathurst of RBC CM.

I've got 2 questions. Both for you, I think, Ben. Firstly, on the cost side, I just wondered if you could quantify the element of the cost reductions in the first half that related to kind of COVID one-off, the savings there? And should we be expecting the majority of these costs to kind of come back in the second half and in FY 2022? Or is it possibly the case that the pandemic might have prompted you to sort of realize that some of those -- all those costs that need to be incurred in the future? And the second question was just that you mentioned an outflow in international that you're expecting in Q4. I just wondered is that related to the Lloyds business that you acquired? Or is it the Brooks Macdonald business where that outflow is expected?

Okay. Well, thank you for your questions. I'll answer that one first, actually in reverse order. It's not related to Lloyds. It's actually a mandate we've had for a bit longer. And it's very much that we've done a good job for them, but they just want to manage their money in a different way, that as I said, we don't offer. So I think that's a no regrets, that one, but it's not Lloyds related. In terms of the costs, we identified in the deck that there was GBP 0.5 million saving in the first half year-on-year in travel and entertainment. I would expect some of that to come back, not necessarily in H2 given the lockdown, but potentially in financial year '22. I would probably temper it slightly with the fact that I think we will be doing a bit more digital than we did historically. So I would hope that we don't quite get back to the levels of before. But clearly, being back on the road is good for us because it means we're doing face-to-face and that should flow through to flow. So I think to be honest, it's all going to be addressed in the round of guidance. So I don't think you need to add anything specific back on to what you've already got in.

[Operator Instructions] And we will now continue with the webcast questions.

Thank you, Hailey. We have 2 questions on the webcast, both from Stuart Duncan of Peel Hunt. The questions are, "Given the transfer of staff to SS&C, do these costs shift from staff costs to other expenses, one? And second, how are advisers building ESG into their investment and advice processes?"

Okay. Ben, do you want to kick off with that, the ESG one?

Absolutely. Thanks for your questions. Actually, that's a good call, Stuart. That is actually correct. So those -- the SS&C costs will -- the cost of operations will move from the staff line into non-staff costs. And I can maybe provide some more detailed guidance to each of you as the exact movement, but that will be a transfer that takes place, hasn't really been an impact in H1, but will be an impact in H2 and then onwards.

Great. Thanks, Ben. And Stuart, thanks for the question on ESG. So from an IFA perspective, under MiFID II, which is -- and has been implemented in Europe but not in the U.K., there is now a requirement of the annual suitability review for advisers to explicitly discuss ESG with a client. Now this is something we had anticipated being rolled out in the U.K., even though we're clearly not part of the EU now. But -- and we still expect it will -- that will happen in some shape or form. But putting that sort of regulatory requirement to one side, there is definitely more interest from clients and particularly sort of the younger generations coming through and really wanting to understand how ESG is part of the investment approach. And I think the wealth sector, in general -- is further behind where the fund sector is. So ESG funds clearly have done exceptionally well. But I think from a wealth perspective, what we're seeing is we're just in the very early stages of that building. And I think that's where we are well placed in terms of what we're doing, and we're working closely with IFAs to inform them, to give them collateral. But also our responsible investment service, which now has over 2 years of track record and a very strong track record has got very good traction, that increased 50% through the period and is growing very rapidly through BPS and MPS, and we've just launched it internationally, and we're now looking at if there's any other sort of product development we want to do in that area to build on it. But we're also building more of ESG into our core investment process, and we'd expect that to continue as one of the risk factors that we consider just as part of our centralized investment process on a BAU basis. So I think the trend is definitely -- is all about increasing focus on ESG, albeit not exclusively in many situations. So hopefully, that covers all the points there. Hailey, back to you for -- if there's anything else coming through.

There are currently no telephone questions.

Great. Anything else on the webcast?

No, we are complete on the webcast. Thank you.

Great. Well, if there aren't any further questions come through, just thank everybody for joining us this morning. We look -- I know Ben has spoken to a number of you over the course of this morning, and we look forward to having further conversations over the next few weeks. Thank you very much. And have a good day.

Thank you, everyone.