LONDON (Reuters) - UK wealth manager St. James's Place <SJP.L> chalked up a record funds under management (FuM) in the first half of the year, boosted by new client inflows, and raised its interim dividend by 40 percent.
FuM was 47.6 billion pounds ($80.79 billion) at the end of June, it said in a statement on Tuesday, up 19 percent from the previous year's 39.9 billion pounds and up 7 percent since the start of the year.
That was boosted by net inflows of 2.4 billion pounds, a rise of 23 percent, and good retention of existing client funds, at 95 percent.
The group recorded total single investments of 3.92 billion pounds in the period, up 21 percent, and said Partnership numbers, the external relationship managers that help sell its services, grew 5.4 percent to 2,007 over 12 months.
The strong inflows helped drive a 12 percent rise in operating profit to 260.7 million pounds, which in turn would help fund an increase in the interim dividend of 40 percent to 8.93 pence a shares, with the forecasts of a similar uplift at the full-year dividend.
(Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Nishant Kumar)