St. James's Place Q1 Gross Inflows Of Funds Up 12% - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - St. James's Place plc (STJ.L), a wealth management group, issued an update on new business inflows and funds under management for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020.

For the first quarter, the company reported gross inflows of funds under management of 4.04 billion pounds, up 12 percent from 3.61 billion pounds in the prior-year quarter.

Net inflows of funds under management were 2.37 billion pounds, up 9 percent from 2.18 billion pounds in the prior-year period.

However, Group funds under management declined to 101.67 billion pounds from 103.52 billion pounds a year ago. The company noted that with the escalation of the COVID-19 crisis during March, there was a sharp decline in global markets and this negatively impacted its funds under management.

Looking ahead, Andrew Croft, Chief Executive of St. James's Place, said, "Although gross and net flows in April have been robust, albeit below the same month last year, 2020 is shaping up to be another challenging year. Whilst our business is resilient, we are not immune to how the unprecedented level of uncertainty may impact the operating environment for the business and our clients for the foreseeable future." Therefore, the company's board has decided to withhold around one-third of the proposed 2019 final dividend or 11.22 pence per share, until such a time as the financial and economic impacts of COVID-19 become clearer.

St. James's Place said it we will pay 20.0 pence per share as a second 2019 interim dividend on 27 May 2020 to those shareholders on the register as at the close of business on 11 May 2020.

In addition, the Board confirmed that it will be making one dividend decision relating to the 2020 financial year in February 2021 at the time of the full-year results.