Despite the setback the firm said it remained resilient and plans to invest more in its growing Financial Planning arm.

The company made a statutory pre-tax loss of £380,000 compared to a profit of £300,000 in the same period last year.

Revenue for the six months ending 30 September dropped by 15.9% (£2.7m) from £17m to £14.3m.

Revenue in the wealth management division was down by £500,000 to £7.3m (H12021: £7.8m).

As revenue fell, the company made £2.2m of cuts to admin expenses and reduced headcount from 163 to 156 compared to a year ago.

Total group AUM dropped to £2.1bn (H12021: £2.4bn).

The company now expects a small loss for the year as a whole.

WH Ireland's share price has fallen nearly 20% over the past year to 28.90p today. The share price has picked up slightly since mid-November when it reached a low of 25.00p.

In its interim statement the company said: “We have continued to make progress in improving the efficiency of the business, focussing around our four offices in London, Manchester, Henley and Poole.  We have been encouraged by the rise in Financial Planning income as we put added emphasis on this area of the business.”

CEO Phillip Wale said: "Although our results are well down on last year's, we were close to financial breakeven despite the very testing market conditions, reflecting the benefit of lower costs and a significant VAT refund.

“Positively, we made good operational progress during the period, including winning 13 new brokerships, and launching our new Debt Capital business to complement our existing Equity Capital Markets and Private Growth Capital businesses. Wealth Management also made good progress enhancing its customer proposition and refining its business model.

“Our first half was impacted as expected by the fall in markets and drop off in transactions on AIM. In the circumstances, we reported a relatively resilient performance and continued to develop the group through selective recruitment and complementary new services, such as our debt capital markets team who completed another transaction this week.

“With a continued focus on operational efficiencies, and the further development of our new and existing offerings, I believe we are well placed to take advantage of a market recovery."