HUB24’s Alcock on winning the platform race
The platform race is “ours to lose”, says HUB24’s chief executive Andrew Alcock, as it reports a 62 per cent rise in annual platform net inflows in FY24.
In its FY24 results, the firm said it saw a 62 per cent rise in annual platform net inflows from $9.7 billion a year ago to reach $15.8 billion.
This was helped by a $1.8 billion large migration from Equity Trustees which led to $5 billion in quarterly net platform inflows in the fourth quarter. Excluding the migration, Q4 net platform inflows were $3.2 billion.
The firm said this was the largest quarterly and annual organic market share gain of all platform providers, and meant HUB24 increased its market share from 6.1 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
Platform funds under administration (FUA) were $84.4 billion, largely driven by the net inflows, while total overall FUA was $104.7 billion.
Based on the expectation of ongoing inflows, the firm said it is targeting a platform FUA range for FY26 of $115 billion to $123 billion. This will comprise net flows of more than $11 billion per annum, excluding large migrations.
The firm was ranked by both the Investment Trends 2024 Platform Benchmarking Report and Adviser Ratings Advice Landscape Report as the top platform for advisers.
Speaking on a shareholder webinar, Alcock said: “For the last four to five months, there has been more stability in the market, better consumer sentiment; advisers are getting on with it, the impost about fee consents has changed a bit and slowed down.
“It’s a long-term trend. We don’t want to get excited about if it is sustainable as there’s a lot of macro stuff going on around the world.
“The sentiments I hear from advisers and licensees are around our value proposition, our attitude, and our customer service and our footprint is increasing. I think it’s the result of us executing well on our strategy, and we need to keep doing that and keep delivering customer service excellence.
“It’s ours to grow, or ours to lose.
“The nature of these businesses is that when you are the primary or chosen platform for advisers, unless you have operational issues and errors, or you go off the boil, it will just continue to happen. It’s for us to lose.”
The results stated the platform is used by 29 per cent of advisers in the industry, up from 10 per cent in FY20. This comprises 17 per cent from a new licensee relationship, 15 per cent from an existing licensee but new adviser and 68 per cent from an existing licensee and existing adviser.
FUA per adviser was $19 million, up from $8 million in FY20, and 10 per cent of advisers using the platform have more than $50 million in FUA on the platform.
The firm declared a final dividend, fully franked, of 19.5¢ per share, which brings the full-year dividend to 38¢ per share fully franked.
AUTHOR
Laura Dew
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