Kingel
23 Apr 2015
CityWire Hargreaves downgraded Jefferies has downgraded online stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown (HRGV) on fears over the shares have become too expensive.Analyst Phil Dobbin downgraded the stock to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’, with a £10.73 price target. The shares fell 2.9% to £11.98 yesterday.Hargreaves boasts an enviable ability to retain clients, but Dobbin said that was already reflected in the share price, and that their analysis of the ‘persistency’ of fund manager and platform assets had yielded surprising results.‘When we started to build an embedded value approach to test the value to asset managers of persistency of assets under management, we fully expected Hargreaves to be the key beneficiary of the approach,’ he said.‘The fact that on a price to embedded basis it was only “mid-table” suggests to us that the value of persistency is already well discounted by the market.‘It appears that from a value point of view much of the good news for Hargreaves is in the price,’ he added. ‘The current valuation could well be vulnerable to either price erosion… or cost increases as the company increasingly attempts to cross sell products.’[link]
theknowledge3
06 Mar 2015
Re: Harry Nimmo sells Hargreaves Lansdown Good on you Harry for taking a profit son. All down now me's thinking.
k9maggie
28 Feb 2015
Re: Harry Nimmo sells Hargreaves Lansdow... if the highly paid Expert Fund Managers can't get it right what chance do us mortals have....sold at 1066 now 1128 thats 5.8% loss.....shares often rise as exdiv date approaches.....for comparison does anyone know where the monies were re-invested to get a better return.....k9
xTitanic
27 Feb 2015
HL website problems Haven't been able to trade on-line since about 1pm quote:Some areas within the My Accounts area of our website are currently unavailable. You can continue to log in to view a valuation of your holdings, however some functions including online dealing will be unavailable.We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. We are working hard to restore full access as soon as possible.
dazedandconfused
24 Feb 2015
Re: Harry Nimmo sells Hargreaves Lansdown so with all the negative views recently on this BB..why does it keep rising!? I was thinking of investing at £9 but couldn't see the upside; someone else obviously does..
Ben Alligin
23 Feb 2015
Harry Nimmo sells Hargreaves Lansdown Harry Nimmo, manager of the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies (SLS ) investment trust, has taken profits on Hargreaves Lansdown nearly six years after he bought into the online stockbroker.Nimmo initially bought into Hargreaves in April 2009 when shares were trading around the 200p level and stuck with the firm following its promotion to the FTSE 100 in March 2011.Shares in Hargreaves Lansdown (HRGV) closed at £10.66 on Friday, leaving Nimmo sitting on a healthy profit, although he admits the stock was one of the weak spots in his trust in the six months to the end of December.- See more at: [link]
nk1999
06 Feb 2015
Telegraph- Questor "The Questor Column:Sell Hargreaves Lansdown as profits fall: Hargreaves Lansdown reported a sharp slowdown in revenue growth and a fall in profits. The FTSE 100 financial advisory group provides a range of services for clients who want to invest their own funds or manage their pensions. The company has grown rapidly as private investors with less than £1 million in assets have been abandoned by banks and wealth Managers. Hargreaves Lansdown has also benefited from a record run in the stock market. The company earns a fee based on the funds it has under management. If stock markets rise, then the funds under its management grow and the company earns more revenue as it is charging fees on a larger pot. The FTSE 100 index has gained almost 80% during the past six years. Revenue has more than doubled in the past six years from £132.8 million in 2009 to a forecasted £292 million at the end of June this year. Pretax profits have soared from £73.1 million in 2009 to an expected £216 million for the year to June 2015. Hargreaves said that active client numbers hit 675,000 in the six months to the end of December, meaning it gained 23,000 new clients in that period. However, that was down from the 77,000 people who joined the service in the same time frame a year earlier. However, the company is still in a strong position as about 80% of revenue is recurring from existing clients. This creates a snowball effect in revenue and profits.That said, the shares are still looking far too expensive given slow growth and falling profits. Questor recommended selling the shares at £13.45 on February 5 last year, and they have fallen 29% since then. The current price is still too expensive. Hargreaves Lansdown at 996p-79p Questor Says “Sell”.nk
sinnet
05 Feb 2015
Re: CityWire I have read the article but what is missing is any acknowledgement that the current margins are unsustainable because of RDR and increasing competition. They may well double their AUA over the next few years but it is at least as probable that margins will halve (which would still leave them making a net profit margin of over 25%). Every driver is pushing down investment management fees and that is going to continue. There is only one way to go if you have a net margin of over 55% in a market with an increasing number of efficient competitors, few barriers to entry, and HMG trying to get investment management fees down.
pharmaspecialist
05 Feb 2015
Re: CityWire I think the reason the PE is relatively high is because of the quality of the company's business and its long term growth and income generating prospects. If you check the company's profit margins, the ROCE and the percentage of recurring business you will see what I mean. One of the UK's most successful fund managers, NIck Train, has given a more detailed explanation of why Hargreaves Lansdown is such a good business to own so if you do a search on Nick Train and Hargreaves Lansdown you should find it. Like you, Mr. Train, might suggest that the shares not cheap at the current price, but he is inclined to hold on because of the quality of the business.
Kingel
05 Feb 2015
Hargreaves Lansdown plans P2P/ CWire Hargreaves Lansdown, the country’s largest fund supermarket, has announced plans for a peer-to-peer lending service as it seeks to diversify its business and broaden its reach to include savers as well as investors.Chief executive Ian Gorham said adding peer to peer – or ‘marketplace’ – lending to its platform would increase the options it could give hard-pressed savers who have endured six years of rock-bottom interest rates.Going 'mainstream'Gorham told analysts that targeting the £700 billion cash savings market would also take the business into the ‘mainstream’ but would not require Hargreaves to gain a banking licence or offer a current account.We want to make Hargreaves Lansdown the centre of people’s financial lives,’ he said in a presentation to City analysts.Hargreaves aims to become a ‘cash broker’ offering what Gorham called a ‘simple portal’ to allow savers to switch to the best accounts from banks and building societies who want to grow their savings business. Gorham said most of the big banks already sat on huge deposits and didn't need savers' cash while the government's funding for lending scheme continued to bail them out.However, switching savings accounts is a cumbersome process which is why Gorham believed an online solution could open up a huge new market for the Bristol-based business, which has become a FTSE 100 company from servicing investors. Gorham cited research by the company which showed that ‘up to 70% of people are uneasy about investing but want to do something interesting with their cash.’Peer-to-peer lendingThe push into cash management will also see Hargreaves vie to become the country's biggest peer-to-peer lender. It plans to turn its 675,000 customer base into an internal market in which some customers will be able to borrow money secured on assets held in funds and shares on the company’s Vantage platform. Gorham believed this could also be a popular service. ‘When they buy a car rather than taking money out of their ISA they can borrow the money instead,’ he said.The loans would come from other customers or ‘peers’ who, as with other marketplace lending schemes, would gain a higher interest rate than they could get from the banks.Gorham said Hargreaves would also look outside the company for borrowers for its customers to lend to. He said there would be no credit risk for the company as it would simply match borrowers with lenders. However, it would set up a 'buffer' to insulate lenders against bad debts.The new cash services won’t be ready for two years as Hargreaves builds the new platform. Gorham reassured analysts that the cost would not be high and would dramatically improve the margin the company makes on customer cash balances from 0.25% to at least 1%. This compares with the 7% ‘spread’ charged by banks who may lend at 9% and offer savers just 2%, he said.Fall in profitsThe announcement came as Hargreaves Lansdown (HRGV + Add to favourites ) unveiled a rare fall in first half profits, prompting its shares to tumble more than 5%.In the six months to the end of 2014 the company missed analysts' consensus forecasts with pre-tax profits dipping 2% to £101.9 million, down from £104.1 million a year earlier, on net revenues up just 1% to £144.1 million. This was despite lifting assets under administration to £49.1 billion from £43.4 billion and adding 23,000 new clients.However, levels of new business slid 20% to £2.25 billion, reflecting difficult stock markets and the absence of the Royal Mail (RMG + Add to favourites ) flotation and Neil Woodford's new fund + Add to favourites launch which boosted business in the previous year. Hargreaves said the fall in profit was due in part to the continued decline in profits it makes from customers’ cash balances, which the savings portal and P2P push are meant to revers
xTitanic
04 Feb 2015
TD Direct sraps exit transfer fees [link] suggests many customers put off from transferring out because of the £25 fee. Could be right.Not supporting TD Direct btw - use iii for funds.Surprised HL SP held up so well. Wouldn't be surprised if there's some fee shake-up all round as its getting on for 12 months since RDR change.
sinnet
04 Feb 2015
Re: CityWire Today's results IMO show how absurdly overvalued HL are. Profits falling, only a small increase in client numbers, margins will continue to be squeezed as RDR issues work their way through. Can't see any reason at all to value these shares on a PE of about 30!
Kingel
30 Jan 2015
CityWire Analysts fear Hargreaves Lansdown losing business shareOnline stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown (HRGV) is causing concern for analysts as it appears to lose grip of its new business share.Liberum analyst Justin Bates retained his ‘sell’ recommendation and target price of 821p on the shares, which rose 3.8% to £10.33 yesterday.‘Consensus forecasts have been reduced considerably in the last few months driven by a reduction in new business assumptions and declining revenue yield forecasts,’ he said. ‘As we approach the interims we see a number of challenges, namely declining interest income and weaker stockbroking commission. Following the release of industry statistics we are also troubled by what appears to be significant loss of new business market share.’‘Our analysis suggests that its share of all net new retail sales through platforms peaked at 20% in 2012, declining to 19% in 2013 and falling further to 17% in 2014. Worryingly, the loss of share appears to have accelerated in H2 2014.’[link]
xTitanic
15 Jan 2015
Re: Fidelity trumps Hargreaves Treating Customers Fairly - business has rules which they must follow or get in trouble from trade bodies etc eg OFT, FSA
Ripley94
13 Jan 2015
Re: Fidelity trumps Hargreaves Thanks.Can you please explain TC F.
