Q1 2021 AUA update

13 April 2021

Nucleus Financial Group plc

('Nucleus' or the 'Company')

Q1 2021 AUA update

Assets under administration increase to £18.0bn with 44.7% increase in net inflows on Q4 2020

Nucleus (AIM: NUC), a leading independent wrap platform provider, today publishes an update on its assets under administration (AUA) in respect of the three months to 31 March 2021.

The Company continues to grow AUA, which rose to £18.0bn as of 31 March 2021, up 28.4% year-on-year and 3.1% on the previous quarter. By comparison, the FTSE All-Share Index increased 23.3% year-on-year and by 4.3% on the last quarter.

Q1 highlights

- Gross inflows of £637m were achieved in Q1 with March 2021 our best ever month for inflows. This represented a 29.5% increase on the previous quarter (Q4 2020: £492m) as sentiment continued to improve, and a 9.8% increase on Q1 2020.

- Net inflows were £301m (with March being our second best ever month) up 44.7% against the prior quarter and up 12.3% on Q1 2020.

- Advisers actively using the platform increased by 2.2% in Q1 2021 compared to the previous quarter and by 1.9% year-on-year.

- Customer numbers increased by 0.7% in Q1 2021 compared to the previous quarter and by 3.1% year-on-year.

- Successful integration of our new colleagues following our December transaction with Genpact.

- Following a successful soft launch period in H2 2020, the first quarter of 2021 saw the full rollout of our new model portfolio service, Nucleus IMX, which has immediately become the third highest discretionary managed portfolio service for net inflows from existing users on the Nucleus platform in Q1 2021.

- Further and continued investment in the platform in the quarter saw enhancements to our phased drawdown functionality, improvements to client documentation and will shortly see the introduction of next day payments.

- Nucleus had the largest year-on-year increase in score (across all platforms) in the latest Platforum User Leaderboard (March 2021 v March 2020) to move into 5th place and was the only platform to score an increase in performance across all categories in the latest report .*

AUA and inflows

David Ferguson, Nucleus' founder and CEO, commented:

"The first quarter has been incredibly strong for new business activity, reflecting the continued achievements of our people and validating our decision to maintain our investment programme through 2020. Q1 net inflows were substantially up on Q4 (and on the prior year) and, at over £300m for the first time in a single month, March was by far our best-ever month for inflows, a trend we'd hope to see continue as lockdown eases."

"User satisfaction continues to improve following the successful acquisition and integration of our new colleagues from OpenWealth. We are pleased with our Q1 performance. Profit for the year to date is ahead of the board's expectations as a result of higher AUA and lower costs and we believe the business is well-positioned to accelerate inflow momentum and to expand our operating margin through the rest of this year and beyond."

Historical flows and AUA data by quarter

* Source: Platforum UK Adviser Platforms: Market Overview (Issue 45). Platforum's user leaderboard asks users to rate their primary and secondary platforms across a series of ten criteria.

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For further information please contact:

Nucleus

David Ferguson, CEO Tel: +44 (0)13 1226 9800

Stuart Geard, Chief Financial Officer

Shore Capital (Nominated Adviser and Broker)

Hugh Morgan Tel: +44 (0)20 7408 4090

Edward Mansfield

Daniel Bush 

Camarco (Media enquiries)

Jennifer Renwick Tel: +44 (0)20 3757 4994

Jake Thomas Notes to Editors

About Nucleus

Nucleus is a wrap platform founded in 2006 by advisers committed to altering the balance of power in the industry by putting the customer centre stage. It provides independent wrap platform services to over 1,450 active adviser users and works with more than 850 financial adviser firms as of 31 March 2021. It is responsible for AUA of £18.0bn on behalf of more than 101,000 customers.

The multi award-winning platform offers a range of custody, trading, payment, reporting, fee-handling, research and integration services across a variety of tax wrappers and more than 6,500 asset choices including cash, OEICs, unit trusts, offshore funds, structured products and listed securities, including ETFs and investment trusts. The platform currently facilitates over 1.1 million customer account transactions on average per month.

Nucleus has been awarded CoreData's 'Best medium sized platform' for 2020 (and the last nine years). It has also been awarded a 5-star service rating at the 2020 and 2019 Financial Adviser Awards, the Schroders 'Platform of the Year' award for 2016, 2017 and 2018 and won 'Best Platform' and 'Platform Innovation' at the 2018 Money Marketing Awards.