St. James's Place H1 assets up 26.5 pct, boosted by net inflows

LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) - British wealth manager St James's Place on Thursday posted an 26.5 percent rise in total managed funds in the first half of the year, driven by net inflows of money from clients.

St James's, which provides face-to-face financial planning for wealthier clients, said net inflows during the period were 4.3 billion pounds ($5.65 billion), helping take total assets to 83 billion pounds, up from 65.6 billion a year earlier.

That helped operating profit rise nearly 40 percent to 397.3 million pounds, it said in a statement, underpinning a 30 percent rise in its underlying cash result and an interim dividend of 15.41 pence a share.

($1 = 0.7614 pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop, editing by Maiya Keidan)