Nucleus, the IFA-owned platform, has said its total assets under administration reached £2.6 billion ($4.2 billion) at the end of the first quarter, a rise of 15 per cent on the previous quarter and up from £1.4 billion a year before.

Nucleus’ revenue from the first quarter of 2011 was £2.207 million, compared to £1.035 million for the same period of 2010 – a rise of 113 per cent. Inflows over Q1 2011 were £366 million, up 36 per cent on 2010’s Q1 figure of £270 million, and rising 16 per cent from the last quarter of 2010.

In discussing the results, Nucleus’ chief executive, David Ferguson, described 2010 as a “pivotal year” for the firm, ending as it had with a rights issue which drummed up £15 million of new capital. The firm ended the year debt-free with positive cash reserves of £4.4 million, he continued.

In other recent news about the firm, earlier this week Nucleus boosted its client relations team with three new hires.

Angela McGiffen was named client relations manager, while Aileen Jeffrey and Lauren Beveridge were appointed to provide client relations support.

McGiffen, who was latterly wrap administrator at Standard Life Savings, will be responsible for building relationships with new and existing IFA partners, along with overseeing the provision of operational support. Jeffrey was formerly pensions administrator at Capita Hartshead, while Beveridge was a customer services representative at Aegon Scottish Equitable.

Several platform firms have come out recently to announce impressive growth rates in the assets under their administration. At the end of last week Ascentric said it had passed the £3 billion AuA milestone, while earlier in the month AXA Wealth announced that sales on its Elevate platform rose by 140 per cent year-on-year to reach £374 million at the end of the first quarter of 2011.