Financial Planning and investment group Tavistock has reported a surge in first half profits thanks to the sale of its investment arm, Tavistock Wealth Limited, to Titan Wealth in August for an initial sum of £20m.

As a result Tavistock, which made a pre-tax loss of £416,000 in the first half of 2020, saw pre-tax profits jump to £35.5m. 

Acquisitive Tavistock, which has bought a number of Financial Planning and IFA firms in recent times, reported net assets of over £49m for the first half (31 March 2021: £15m).

Further acquisitions are in the pipeline, the group said.

Tavistock said the sale proceeds had helped it repay outstanding borrowings of £3.53m and buy back and cancel 4.7% of the company's issued share capital.

The firm will pay an interim dividend of 0.05p per share.

Revenues for the first half were up 27% at £17m (H1 2020: £13.4 million) while adjusted EBITDA (a measure of profit) was 13% lower at £1.1m (H1 2020: £1.3 million) due to the one-off impact of staff salary sacrifice and government furlough support during H1 2020 plus the disposal of Tavistock Wealth Limited.

In its advisory business the firm reported a 37% increase in revenues to £14.7m (H1 2020: £10.7m). The firm says advisory revenues are anticipated to exceed total group revenues for the financial year 2020.

However, the investment management business suffered a 13% fall in revenues to £2.4m (H1 2020: £2.7m) and 6% reduction in EBITDA to £1.6m (H1 2020: £1.7 million). This was due to the group receiving only five months' contribution from the investment management business prior to its sale to Titan

Brian Raven, Tavistock's chief executive, said: "The strategic partnership with Titan and sale of TWL has transformed the shape of the business and its prospects. It has enabled the delivery of immediate enhancement in value to shareholders while providing the company with the firepower to accelerate the growth of the business through acquisitions, with some exciting prospective targets already being considered.

"In addition, our advisory business continues to perform strongly and is already on track to deliver revenues ahead of the entire group revenues in the prior year. We are in a strong position to continue developing a much larger and more profitable distribution and wealth management group, to deliver enhanced value to shareholders."