Charles Stanley, the London-listed wealth management and brokerage firm, said that for the year ending 31 March reported profit before tax fell 33 per cent to £6.1 million, down from £9.1 million a year ago.

Charles Stanley, the London-listed wealth management and brokerage firm, said that for the year ending 31 March reported profit before tax fell 33 per cent to £6.1 million ($10.3 million), down from £9.1 million a year ago.

Despite the fall in profit, revenue increased 17 per cent from last year to £149 million, while total funds under management rose 14 per cent from £17.7 billion to £20.1 billion.

The firm’s chairman, David Howard, said in is interim statement that it had been a year of “significant cost and investment” for the future.

He said that profitability had also been impacted by the acquisition of further teams of high-quality investment managers, the rollout of its platform business Charles Stanley Direct, and a major programme of up-grading of discretionary and advisory investment management services.

Over the past year, Charles Stanley has opened new offices in Leicester and Cardiff, and in December acquired Evercore Pan Asset Capital Management for a partly deferred payment of up to £2 million.

The firm said that Charles Stanley Direct now had over 16,000 clients with £840 million of assets under administration.

“This pace of development is likely to continue over the year ahead, but the changes that are in place already should, all things being equal, deliver an improvement in our profitability.  Nevertheless there are too many uncertainties at this early stage of the year to make any reliable predictions.  So once again I approach the future with a degree of caution," said Howard.

Charles Stanley has also made a number of new hires in the past 12 months. In April, the firm appointed Anthony Scott as head of investment management and earlier this year also appointed Simon Davis as director of wealth management in the company’s financial services division.