AJ Bell announces £500m IPO

The IPO will include a retail share offer, available exclusively to AJ Bell customers, and is expected to take place towards the end of 2018 or early 2019.

AJ Bell says it does not intend to raise new capital as part of the IPO and its two largest shareholders, co-founder and chief executive Andy Bell and Invesco Perpetual, will both retain cornerstone shareholdings post-IPO.

In 2017 the Group grew revenues by 17% to £75.6m and reported 29% growth in profit before tax to £21.7m.

Andy Bell, chief executive, said: “These are exciting times for our business. Over the last 22 years we have built a multi-award winning and easy to use investment platform that is the engine room of a fast growing and profitable business. An IPO is a natural next step in our journey and will provide a further boost to our future growth through the increased profile a stock market listing will give us.

“We believe the outlook for our business is extremely positive. The need for people to save and invest for their future has never been stronger and we are making it easier for them to do that. Our focus on the needs of our customers has resulted in assets invested via our platform increasing by 26% a year on average over the last five years, with total assets under administration hitting £42 billion.

“We now have 172,000 customers and I want them to be able to share in our success by giving them exclusive access to the offer.”