Lockdown savers pile £8bn into Hargreaves Lansdown

Lockdown savers pile £8bn into Hargreaves Lansdown: Broker’s billionaire founders to receive £82m in dividends

Hargreaves Lansdown was boosted by an influx of customers during lockdown, as thousands of Britons sat down to order their finances and invest.

The Bristol-based broker saw savers pile £7.7billion more than they withdrew into stocks and funds through its platform in the 12 months to June 30, and its profit before tax shot up by 24 per cent to £378.3million.

The billionaire founders of Hargreaves will receive £82million in dividends. 

Hargreaves Lansdown saw savers pile £7.7bn more than they withdrew into stocks and funds in the 12 months to June 30, and its profit before tax shot up by 24 per cent to £378.3m

Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown are to pocket £63.4million and £18.6million respectively from the company they founded in a bedroom in 1981. The pair own a combined 31.5 per cent of shares. 

Their latest bonanza comes after Hargreaves hiked its payout by almost a third to 54.9p a share.

The strong performance comes as the firm attempts to put its involvement in the Neil Woodford debacle behind it.

The firm is still facing legal action from swathes of customers who objected to its promotion of the Woodford Equity Income fund, even when it was facing severe issues threatening its stability.

But many savers appear to have forgiven Hargreaves, as 188,000 new customers joined over the year to take its clients to 1.4million.

Chris Hill, chief executive, said: ‘The impacts of Covid are really significant. But people are thinking more about saving for the long term.’

Asset manager Standard Life Aberdeen managed to stem its outflows, pulling £100million more than it lost into its funds over the first half of the year. 

This was a marked improvement on the £15.9billion of outflows it experienced over the same period a year earlier.

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