Royal London sees jump in growth of Ascentric

Royal London Group has seen growth of its Ascentric wrap jump with £233 million attracted on to the platform in the first nine months of this year.

That growth has helped the wrap reach £1 billion of assets, although it is still some way off its £2.5 billion break-even point.

It comes after Bath-based adviser firm Chartwell Group signed up to use Fundsdirect, a white-labelled version of the wrap.

The firm yesterday went live with the platform, which it is using to take on the low-value clients that fee-based financial planners cannot afford to advise in person. 

That agreement will add further assets to Ascentric, with Chartwell hoping to add £1 billion on to the wrap. A further boost is also likely to come from link ups with national IFA firm Towergate, and Simon Chamberlain’s Succession Advisory Services IFA consolidation vehicle.

‘Ascentric had an excellent third quarter performance, reflecting the hard work that has been undertaken over the two years since acquisition,’ said Mike Yardley (pictured) chief executive of Royal London.

Strong protection sales have meanwhile helped Royal London achieve a 8% jump in new business figures for the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year.

Royal London Group reported sales rose to £1.84 billion for the nine months up to 30 September from £1.71 billion in the same period of 2008. The insurer’s results were boosted by a strong performance from its protection arms Bright Grey, with sales up 10% to £140 million and new business Scottish Provident, which generated £170 million of new sales (on a PVNBP basis).

‘The group has continued to achieve good overall results, increasing the total amount of profitable new business despite the uncertain economic backdrop,’ said Yardley. ‘Although economic conditions will remain difficult, I am confident that we will continue to attract good levels of new business during the rest of the year and into 2010.’

Scottish Life, Royal London’s pension business, saw new business figures slip by 5% to £1.1 billion, which include sales of group pensions dropping by 24% to £243.9 million. Royal London Asset Management reported a 3% drop in sales and pulled in £1.1 billion of new assets, which was 13% down against the same period of 2008.

Royal London reported bouncing back into profit for the first half of the year earlier this month. The mutual insurer made a £18 million IFRS profit before tax in the six months up to 30 June against the £284 million made in the same period of 2008.