Drawing a curtain on a busy six months, Walker Crips yesterday posted an operating profit of £300,000 for the half-year to the end of September, and announced its revenues had surged 10% to £9.7m.
The results mark a sharp turnaround for Walker Crips, which 12 months before reported a £1.1m loss. They are also a sign that its strategic plan to focus on its core wealth business is working – a mission it announced last April following the sale of its asset management division to Liontrust for £12m.
Regional push?
Looking forward, Walker Crips’ chief executive officer Rodney Fitzgerald, told Portfolio Adviser that while the firm’s turnaround was not complete, the potential in the regions had caught his eye.
“The job’s not done. We are still working to hire people and [have been] bringing people in across the board,” Fitzgerald said.
He added: “There are pockets where we think there’s some wealth, like the North West, the North East border, and the South West, which is competitive.”
Fitzgerald said he was not planning an aggressive regional assault, and urged that it could take up to four years before the business had completed its transformation.
He explained: ‘We have £2bn in assets under management so we are trying to get that up – £5bn for a Plc is the usual target – but we are doing better than we expected at hiring people and what we’ve found is that people we took on brought clients.”
