Wealthtech group True Potential posted record financial results in 2022 after marking its 15th year of growth to see revenues rise 16% to £337.9m.
The Newcastle investment platform, which now has 429 employees, has published accounts for 2022 showing net revenue increased 19.6% in 2022 to £226m, while operating profit rose 5% from £127.9m to £134.2m. Advice fees reached £123.8m, up 22% from £101.2m in 2021, and platform fees were also up 25% to £82.7m from £66.0m, along with investment management fees up 29.8% to £127.2m from £98m.
Ebitda for the year was £176.2m, up 20.4% from £146.4m in 2021, while pre-tax profit increased 32.6% to £115.3m, driven by the reduction in finance costs in the year. The company, which builds and releases its own technology in-house, had more than £24.5bn of assets on the firm’s in-house investment platform in 2022, an increase of £4bn year-on-year, and it now has 157,000 clients invested in its True Potential Portfolios, up from 122,000 the previous year.
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In the accounts the company said its clients made 6.9m logins over 2022, up from 5.4m, and that 4.7m logins were made through its mobile app, a record number it said proves that its “mobile first strategy was ahead of the game and continuing to grow”. True Potential directors credited the figures to their long-term investment in pioneering technology and hybrid advice models.
They said the approach has attracted large numbers of financial advisers and investors to True Potential’s platform since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and that a fifth of the UK’s financial advisers are either employed by True Potential or use its technology, with a further 284 advisers joining during the year. True Potential’s impulseSave technology, which allows investors to open or top up their pensions and investments from as little as £1, also saw growth. In total, £183m was invested through impulseSave in 2022, with £500,000 raised for the company’s charity partners.
Chief executive, Daniel Harrison, said: “I’m incredibly proud of our response to the challenges of 2022, with an ongoing war in Ukraine, three UK Prime Ministers, and a surge in interest rates, clients turned to us more than ever before for help with their finances. Our impulseSave technology has been of particular help to clients this year. In times of uncertainty, having access to their investments at the touch of a button has been invaluable. There is still a lot of work to do to close the financial advice gap but technology has helped immeasurably this year.”
True Potential founder and chairman, Sir David Harrison, also received two honours in 2022 - a Doctorate from the Open University and a Knighthood for his services to business, education and social mobility.
He added: “With a UK general election at most 18 months away, you’re going to hear a lot more about growth. I’m pleased to say this is something we at True Potential know a lot about as this year’s financial results show. “In her record-breaking, short-lived premiership, Liz Truss talked about ‘growth, growth, growth’. Her list of positive achievements in those 49 days is not long, but she was right to make growth her mission. There is now a consensus among our political leaders that growing the British economy is the priority, even if they don’t have the answer to the vexed question of how to do it.
“The good news is that growth is already happening and True Potential is a flourishing example of it. Since the founding partners mortgaged their homes and set up True Potential in 2007 – yes, just in time for the financial crash – the business has grown 41% per year on average. Over the same period, the British economy has averaged 1.2% growth per year.
“With three Prime Ministers, 2022 was a dramatic reminder that faces and ideas come and go. In politics, as in business, change is inevitable. A further changing of the guard will come sooner or later but one thing will remain the same. True Potential was built for growth and has delivered it for 15 years. As we look to the next 15 years, we are in the strongest possible position, and I am full of optimism.”
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