Hargreaves Lansdown: Hill exit leaves retail platform in a shaky state
Canny market timing is a must for good brokers. Hargreaves Lansdown boss Chris Hill demonstrated an astute grip of this with the announcement of his retirement on Monday.
Shares dropped up to 7 per cent in response. The official reason was that the company was losing a leader of six years’ standing. The decline, of course, had nothing to do with an update that showed client growth was weak. Or news over the weekend that 3,200 ex-investors are to sue Hargreaves for promoting funds run by Neil Woodford, a stockpicking star who crashed to earth.
Marrying cause and effect is tricky. Hill will be missed. On his watch Hargreaves’ client base doubled to 1.7mn. Assets under administration rose to more than £120bn to the end of last year. Nonetheless shareholders are sitting on losses of more than 40 per cent over his tenure. They have racked up the bulk of the deficit since the start of 2020. The collapse of Woodford Investment Management in autumn 2019 was followed by a pandemic and cost of living crisis.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Tax Cognition
