HL.L - Hargreaves Lansdown plc
| Previous close | 1,815.50 |
| Open | 1,832.00 |
| Bid | 1,831.50 x 0 |
| Ask | 1,832.50 x 0 |
| Day's range | 1,813.00 - 1,839.50 |
| 52-week range | 1,624.00 - 2,447.00 |
| Volume | 219,121 |
| Avg. volume | 1,017,400 |
| Market cap | 8.726B |
| Beta (3Y monthly) | 0.89 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 35.24 |
| EPS (TTM) | 52.00 |
| Earnings date | 31 Jan 2020 |
| Forward dividend & yield | 0.34 (1.86%) |
| Ex-dividend date | 2019-09-26 |
| 1y target est | 1,810.38 |
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 1-Billionaire Brexit donor gives 1 million pounds to UK Conservatives
Peter Hargreaves, one of Britain's wealthiest men and the second-biggest donor to the 2016 campaign to leave the European Union, has donated 1 million pounds ($1.28 million) to Prime Minister Boris Johnson's party ahead of next week's election. Hargreaves, who amassed his fortune from co-founding fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown, said he was worried that the project he championed could be abandoned, leaving the United Kingdom stuck in the European Union. Johnson, 55, hopes to win a majority on Dec. 12 to push through the Brexit deal he struck with the EU after the bloc granted a third delay to a divorce that was originally supposed to have taken place at the end of March.
- Yahoo Finance UK
Brexit blamed as investors trapped in £2.5bn UK property fund
M&G Investments has suspended withdrawals from its Property Portfolio fund after a period of 'unusually high and sustained outflows.'
- Stockopedia
Is there downside risk to the Hargreaves Lansdown share price at 1,855p?
Momentum is sticky and persists for longer than investors tend to anticipate. The downside of this is that stocks with recent negative momentum are likely to c8230;
- Bloomberg
‘Sack Them All,’ Billionaire Stephen Lansdown Says of U.K. Politicians
(Bloomberg) -- Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.U.K. politicians should be wary of seeking Stephen Lansdown’s backing for their election campaigns.The co-founder of financial-services firm Hargreaves Lansdown Plc is exasperated about Britain’s delayed departure from the European Union. If he had his way, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and the country’s other lawmakers would be ousted from their jobs. With the U.K. poised for a third election in four years to try and break the Brexit deadlock, Lansdown may get some of what he wishes.“It’s such a farce,” he said of the U.K.’s faltering efforts to leave the EU. “We should have been able to deal with Brexit. We should never have got ourselves into this position.”Still, the U.K.’s political gridlock hasn’t hurt Lansdown financially. He’s sold more than $500 million of stock in Hargreaves Lansdown since the nation voted to leave the EU in 2016, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Moreover, he’s pocketed that cash tax-free after moving a decade ago to Guernsey, the British crown dependency that doesn’t apply levies on capital gains. His remaining stake in Bristol, England-based Hargreaves Lansdown is worth about $1 billion.Bloomberg spoke with Lansdown, 67, last month, ahead of his appearance at an event highlighting research from trade group Guernsey Finance on wealthy families and sustainable investing. The billionaire, who left Hargreaves Lansdown’s board in 2012, declined to discuss Neil Woodford, the U.K. fund manager who received backing from Hargreaves Lansdown for his now-collapsed investment firm. Comments have been edited and condensed.When did you set up your family office?After we moved to Guernsey, I started managing my own portfolio from home. After the second or third consecutive day of my wife and I being in the house all day, I realized that was more her domain, so I found a desk in an office to use and we’ve grown it from there. It was fun for about five minutes to manage everything myself after going from Hargreaves Lansdown, where everything was done for me, but then you realize all the little things you’re doing are a bit tedious.We’ve now got a team of about half-dozen in a bigger office. I still lead on what we should be investing in. Pula -- the name of my family office, meaning “rain” in Botswana’s national language -- has interests in sport, aviation, unquoted businesses that include my sustainable portfolio, and land and lodges in southern Africa. Separate teams run the outside businesses.Did you grow up wanting to be super rich?Going through school, I didn’t ever imagine I was going to be where I am now. When we started Hargreaves Lansdown, we wanted to be a success, to earn a good living and look after our family, but did we ever think it would be as successful? No. We got it right from not incurring any debt, so we paid our bills as we went. We didn’t take any money out of the business either for the first 10 years -- which people don’t believe. We only took out just enough to live off. Eventually, the opportunity to float the business gave me an opportunity to step back and do other things.How involved are you in Pula’s investments?When I started, I wanted to be fully involved. But I’ve learned I can contribute better by challenging and guiding, and I don’t get involved as much anymore. If you get emotionally involved in a company, you perhaps don’t make the right decisions, particularly if your life and soul doesn’t depend on it. When we started Hargreaves Lansdown, it had to work. We had nothing else, so we really focused on it. But when you’re investing into different pockets, you can’t look after all of them. You need a good team around you to take on responsibilities.What’s your view on U.K. politics?It’s such a farce. I know that is a generalization, and some of them are probably quite good, but you look at all the political parties and politicians and you wouldn’t give any of them a job. They are just looking after themselves all the time or their party and not doing their job. I just wonder really if there’s some way the country could call an annual general meeting and sack them all.I was in favor of Brexit. That aside, we need to get on with things. Whatever the situation, there will be entrepreneurs and people in the country that don’t do so well. But people need the opportunity to be able to get going, and politically it’s just been a stalemate. That’s highlighted how poor our politicians are, and also how poor our civil service is probably. We should have been able to deal with Brexit. We should never have got ourselves into this position.How do your sustainable investments compare?I’ve made sustainable investments for about 10 years now, and I’ve had good returns on a couple. Unlike buying a share on the stock exchange where you can see what happens minute-by-minute, it tends to be a project you’re investing in -- a wind farm or a water purification system -- and it takes a long time to get to the market. If I look to make 10% to 15% per year over a long period of time on sustainable investments, that would be very good. I’ve now got almost 10% of my portfolio in sustainable investments. Could it be higher? Probably. How do you balance sustainability with your private jet?The private jet is my downside in sustainability, but I’m looking to calculate how much carbon dioxide we’re burning and then offset it. As long as there’s a major positive in that way, I think your conscience can be clear, and I think you’re going to see more and more people taking that route.How involved are your children with your family office?My son runs our sport group in Bristol and my daughter is very involved in what we do in Africa. Until now, they’ve been on the fringes. Everything is going to be theirs eventually, so it makes sense they’re involved. What we do and where we focus our investments are decisions we will take together on an ongoing basis.What are your future plans?I will always carry on investing. I love looking at businesses. I will always meddle, which is not a great thing to say but I think it’s inevitable I will take some interest. My main role in Pula’s portfolio is to focus where I think the best areas are going forward and be more like a chairman. I’m really focused on our work in Africa. That’s taking up more and more of my time.What’s life like in Guernsey?Guernsey gives me security, good governance and also the political situation is stable -- a premium these days. There’s no capital gains tax, too, and that has allowed me to sell down my holding of Hargreaves Lansdown shares -- from about 28% when I left to 9% today -- and reinvest in sports, Africa and Guernsey businesses. Sometimes you don’t invest due to the tax position, but I can always make a decision without worrying about it. That’s the real joy.(Updates with details on Neil Woodford in fifth paragraph, comments on future plans in penultimate.)To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Stupples in London at bstupples@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven CrabillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance UK
Hargreaves Lansdown 'learning lessons' from Woodford fiasco
CTO Chris Worle said Tuesday: 'There’s a huge amounts of work going on now really to look at all aspects and where we can learn the lessons.'
- Fool.co.uk
Hargreaves Lansdown shares and the Neil Woodford saga: here’s what you need to know
Law firm Leigh Day firm has received over 500 enquiries from Woodford investors in relation to a potential claim against Hargreaves Lansdown (LON: HL).
- Fool.co.uk
After Woodford, is this FTSE 250 growth stock a better buy than its FTSE 100 rival?
Paul Summers takes a look at the latest numbers from a company looking to steal the industry crown from its top-tier rival.
- Fool.co.uk
Hargreaves Lansdown shares are down due to the Neil Woodford saga. What’s the best move now?
Hargreaves Lansdown (LON: HL) shares have taken a hit due to the Neil Woodford debacle. Has the pullback created a buying opportunity?
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 2-BNP Paribas takes Allfunds platform stake as fund managers cut costs
PARIS/LONDON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - French bank BNP Paribas has obtained a 22.5% stake in wealth management platform Allfunds in the latest sign of asset managers looking to trim costs in the face of rising regulatory expenses and pressure on fees from investors. Under the deal, for which financial terms were not announced, BNP Paribas will entrust Allfunds with managing the distribution of third-party investment fund contracts for several BNP Paribas Group entities.
- The Guardian
After Woodford, where is the contrition from Hargreaves Lansdown?
We expect better than the fan-club tone of the best buy list following its hero’s costly crash and burn. What does Hargreaves Lansdown, Neil Woodford’s former cheerleader-in-chief, make of its old hero’s decision to throw in the towel? Surely this is an ideal moment for the investment platform’s chief executive, Chris Hill, to share the “learnings and improvements” that apply to his own firm. He’s been promising to reveal the fruits of this exercise almost from the moment Woodford’s flagship fund was suspended in June. There was near-silence from Bristol on Wednesday. Hargreaves relayed the latest grim updates for Woodford investors on its website, but that was all. Hill must still working on his “learnings”. This is odd, though, because Peter Hargreaves, one of the firm’s founders and still its biggest shareholder, has been clear about one lesson to be drawn. “The reality is platform buy lists, especially the Hargreaves Lansdown one, have been key to the fortunes of some fund managers,” he told FT Adviser this month. “Maybe the Woodford issue will mean people take them with a pinch of salt in future.” Well, yes, investors definitely should keep a cellar of salt handy when reading Hargreaves’ Wealth 50 report. Woodford’s Equity Income Fund retained its star status until the gates were shut, despite the platform revealing afterwards that it had been fretting since late 2017 about the number of illiquid stocks in the portfolio. But you’ll struggle to get Hill, or Hargreaves the company, to concede there’s a fundamental problem with best buy lists that blur the line between promotion and research. Instead, Hill has defended current practices, arguing that recommendations are valued by the punters and that “the shortcomings on one fund should not detract from the benefits”. Nobody, obviously, expects only winning funds to be included. But, come on, the one-dimensional fan-club tone of best buy lists is grating. Where’s the scepticism? Where are the counter views? Where’s the acknowledgement that the cult of the star fund manager, which has been hugely profitable for Hargreaves, may not be all it’s cracked up to be? Where, indeed, is the admission that Hargreaves, having prodded many clients in Woodford’s direction, had a duty to ensure governance was more robust than the cosy-looking set-up seen at the Patient Capital investment trust? One lives in hope that Hargreaves’ promised self-examination will produce something more meaningful than the early but vague apology for the “disappointment and frustration” suffered by clients. But it’s starting to look as if Hargreaves just hopes the whole Woodford thing would blow over. Regulators must not let that happen. Asos still has a way to go Good news from Asos: there have been no more self-inflicted calamities with the automated warehouses since the last episode. Full-year profits still collapsed, but only to the degree that embattled chief executive Nick Beighton had indicated in his last profits warning in July – they fell 68% to £33.1m. The share roses 28% on Wednesday. The only way is up. Well, maybe. For all the hype around Asos, the company’s stupendous investment spree – £700m spent in the past five years – has so far succeeded only in demonstrating that cheap and cheerful fashion lines are popular. Revenues last year were £2.7bn. The harder part is making decent money from global expansion and ensuring that new hubs in Atlanta and Berlin earn their keep. Asos’ operating profit margin last year was a skinny 1.3%. In the old days, meaning half a decade ago, Asos aspired to 6%-8%. It’s hard to tell if that long-term ambition remains wholly intact because Beighton has adopted a pose as a man of mystery and has abandoned the policy of offering year-ahead guidance on profits and sales. Actually, though, the new stance is probably sensible for two reasons. First, Asos’ forecasting record was reliably terrible. Second, competition has become stiffer since those long-ago days when Asos seemed to have the twentysomething fast fashion field to itself. Boohoo, with its PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal brands, has planted itself on the same patch. Meanwhile, Next’s online operation is rapidly expanding into the world of third-party brands and never seems to suffer the warehousing hiccups that have plagued Asos in the past year. Beighton says the problems at Asos have now been fixed and, if so, investors may eventually discover the answer to the profit margin riddle. The reassurance for investors is that Asos has beefed-up its cast of non-executive directors, led by chairman Adam Crozier, the former ITV chief executive, and they surely won’t tolerate an operational relapse. The prickly Beighton still has a lot of lost ground to recover.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Fallen fund star Woodford's firm suffers ignominious end
Once one of Britain's most celebrated money managers and idolised by a legion of investor devotees, the collapse of Neil Woodford's business has been swift and brutal. The 59-year-old moved quickly to call time on his eponymous asset management company late on Tuesday, hours after being sacked as manager of the firm's flagship fund by its administrator, Link Fund Solutions. The move followed four months of efforts to sell out of a number of unlisted and little traded stocks - some 20% of the fund's portfolio according to Britain's regulator - and raise cash to pay off investors irked by weak returns.
- Fool.co.uk
Forget Bitcoin! I’d invest in these 2 stocks to get rich instead
Want to achieve higher returns on your investments? Bitcoin is not the way to go, says Jonathan Smith.
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 6-Fund empire of once-star manager Neil Woodford shuts
Famed British money manager Neil Woodford shut his asset management business on Tuesday, calling it quits hours after administrators stepped in to wind down his flagship fund and sack him as its manager. Woodford, one of Britain's most high profile investors, had been battling to save his company since June after a flood of investor redemption requests forced him to suspend withdrawals in his flagship LF Woodford Equity Income Fund.
- Fool.co.uk
The Hargreaves Lansdown share price is hit by Brexit. Here’s what I’d do
Hargreaves Lansdown (LON: HL) isn't the only investment that could be damaged by Brexit.
- Yahoo Finance UK
What to Watch: Hargreaves Lansdown and OnTheMarket hit by Brexit, NBrown turns a profit
A daily overview of the top business, market, and economic stories to watch in the UK, Europe, and abroad.
- Reuters - UK Focus
London shares cling to gains on trade optimism despite mixed signals
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 1-Hargreaves Lansdown assets up 3% on new business, market gains
British investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown said its total assets rose 3% in the quarter to the end of September, driven by net inflows of client cash and market gains, although investment sentiment was weak. Total assets under administration were 101.8 billion pounds ($124.45 billion), it said in a statement, up from 99.3 billion pounds at the end of June. Net new business contributed 1.7 billion pounds while markets added a further 800 million pounds.
- Reuters - UK Focus
REFILE-BUZZ-Asset managers: JP Morgan upgrades DWS to "overweight"
- The Guardian
Hargreaves Lansdown set for further grief over Woodford debacle
AGM this week will be dominated by scrutiny of the firm’s links with the frozen investment fund, and the toll on its share price. The last thing Hargreaves Lansdown needed in the run-up to Thursday’s annual general meeting was a broadside from the company’s founder and biggest shareholder about its handling of the Neil Woodford affair. Peter Hargreaves, who owns 32% of the business that bears his name, blamed the company’s management for the plight of savers who are now unable to get their money out of Woodford’s funds. “It’s annoyed the hell out of me that it would appear he [Woodford] has not been truthful with Hargreaves Lansdown. But it’s also annoyed me that they [Hargreaves Lansdown] let it go on so long,” Hargreaves told the Sunday Times. Hargreaves, most of whose £3bn-plus fortune is tied up in the investment service company, added: “The clients have been stuffed in this horrible Woodford fund.” Hargreaves Lansdown, a FTSE 100 company, will hold the AGM at its Bristol headquarters on 10 October alongside a trading update for the three months to the end of September. Woodford’s flagship equity income fund blocked withdrawals in June and is not due to reopen until December, after its plunging value sparked a run of savers trying to get their money back. Almost 300,000 Hargreaves Lansdown customers, about a quarter of the total, have money tied up there. The company had promoted Woodford heavily in its Wealth 50 list of favourite funds, withdrawing the recommendation only when the fund was frozen. Chris Hill, Hargreaves Lansdown’s chief executive, has tried to atone for his company’s role in the debacle. He offered an apology and he and his top team waived annual bonuses for last year and fees for affected customers. But that may not be enough for some individual Hargreaves Lansdown shareholders who also have money frozen in Woodford’s fund. The affair exposed the close relationship between Woodford and Hargreaves Lansdown, which made £41m in fees from clients’ investments in the fund before its closure. Peter Parry, policy director at the UK Shareholders’ Association, said: “There may well be a number of people who are invested in both Woodford and Hargreaves Lansdown who are quite surprised to learn how close those links were. I think some investors who are quite active will want to go along, rattle the cage and question the directors pretty closely.” The company is unlikely to face major rebellions at the AGM. Shareholder advisers are fairly content with its governance, though Pirc and Minerva have questioned executives’ pay levels. Woodford’s woes have taken their toll on Hargreaves Lansdown’s shares, which hit a record of more than £24 in May before falling by a quarter over the following month. Even after a further fall last week, it has been a phenomenal investment since floating at 160p in 2007. But some analysts argue the Woodford imbroglio could cause further trouble for a company whose success has been based on its reputation for customer service and investment advice. Last week Credit Suisse gave Hargreaves Lansdown an “underperform” rating, sending the shares down. “We see continued headwinds from the impact of the gating of the LF Woodford equity income fund,” analyst Haley Tam said, adding that the company’s outsized profit margins could come under pressure. If Thursday’s trading update on post-Woodford performance shows the sceptics are right, Peter Hargreaves and other shareholders could get angrier.
- Reuters - UK Focus
UPDATE 2-UK stocks retreat as weak U.S. data adds to global growth fears
UK stocks retreated on Tuesday, reversing gains from earlier in the day, coming under pressure following disappointing manufacturing data from the United States that added to concerns about the health of the global economy. The FTSE 100 lost 0.7% and a sub-index of banks fell more than 1%. The main index still outperformed the benchmark European bourse that was already rattled by weak factory activity data from the euro zone.
- Reuters - UK Focus
Ex-divs to take 1.1 points off FTSE 100 on Sept. 26
- Reuters - UK Focus
Woodford struggles to build bridges with UK financial advisers
With his flagship 3.7 billion pound ($4.5 billion) fund frozen, money manager Neil Woodford has been travelling around Britain trying to convince independent financial advisers (IFAs) his firm remains a good long-term bet. Woodford, one of the UK's best-known fund managers, has given no media interviews or made any public appearances since his Equity Income Fund was suspended on June 3 after it ran out of cash to pay back investors seeking to leave. Woodford has been "fighting his corner" said one source who attended the meetings, explaining his view of the markets and receiving a positive response, though two others said they did not find his arguments convincing.
