St James’s Place, the wealth management firm which is part of Lloyds Banking Group, said its operating profit for the year ending on 31 December 2010 was £332.6 million ($540.4 million), up from £228.9 million a year earlier.

Its pre-tax profit was £455.0 million, compared to £363.2 million the prior year, St James’s Place said in a statement.

With these positive results, the proposed final dividend increased by 49 per cent to 3.975 pence per share, making a full-year dividend of 6.0 pence (2009: 4.5 pence).

The firm logged a net inflow of funds under management of £3 billion, up from £2.3 billion in 2009, bringing total funds under management to £27 billion – a gain of 26 per cent year-over-year.

“Whilst the road to recovery for the UK economy is likely to remain challenging, the need for trusted financial advice is greater than ever. Given the market opportunity available to us, together with the continuing growth and development of the partnership, we remain confident of our ability to achieve the 15-20 per cent per annum new business growth target over the longer term,” said David Bellamy, chief executive.