Hargreaves Lansdown PLC Add to portfolio

FTSE's winning streak snaps as Hargreaves and Burberry dip. The UK blue-chip index fell 53 points, or 0.7%, to 7,452, snapping a four-day winning streak which has left it on course for a 2.3% rise this week even with yesterday's fall. 'Investors appear to be worried about China's coronavirus once again, after a couple of trading sessions where focus on tariff cuts, a potential vaccine and economic stimulus generated more positive sentiment,' said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. 'The number of cases has passed 30,000, a doctor who was a prominent whistleblower at the outset of the crisis has died, and ratings agency S&P has cut its forecast for economic growth in China in 2020.'.

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(Reuters) - Hargreaves Lansdown <HRGV.L> co-founder and biggest shareholder Peter Hargreaves has sold 34.4 million shares in the investment platform, at more than a 6% discount to the stock's last close, a bookrunner said on Friday. Shares of the company opened 5.2% lower at 16.2 pounds on the London Stock Exchange, near the sale price of 16 pounds a share, taking the year-to-date losses to 15%. "The sale of some of my shares in Hargreaves Lansdown is part of a process of long-term financial planning to diversify my assets," Hargreaves said. After the stake sale, Hargreaves owns nearly one-fourth of the company and remains the biggest shareholder, according to the bookrunner.

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The co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown PLC (HL.LN) has sold 550 million pounds ($712.8 million) worth of shares, Barclays Capital Securities Ltd. said Friday. Barclays has sold 34.4 million Hargreaves Lansdown shares on behalf of Peter Hargreaves at GBP16 each, a 6.4% discount to Thursday's closing price of 1,708.50 pence. Barclays said late Thursday that it was selling GBP500 million worth of shares in the FTSE 100-listed retail-investment platform via an accelerated bookbuild offering to institutional investors. "The sale of some of my shares in Hargreaves Lansdown is part of a process of long-term financial planning to diversify my assets," Mr. Hargreaves said.

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(Reuters) - Hargreaves Lansdown's (HRGV.L) largest investor Peter Hargreaves will sell shares worth about 500 million pounds in the British investment platform via a sale to institutional investors, a bookrunner on the deal said. "This is part of a process of long-term financial planning to diversify my assets. I remain, and will continue to be, a substantial shareholder in Hargreaves Lansdown," Hargreaves, who co-founded the firm with Stephen Lansdown in 1981, said. The sale will come just days after a slowdown in net new business growth overshadowed an increase in half-year profit for Hargreaves. His shareholding of 149.86 million shares is worth about 2.56 billion pounds, according to Reuters calculation, based on the Bristol, southwest England-based company's closing share price of 1,708.5 pence on Thursday.

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FTSE 100 movers: Hargreaves heads lower; Polymetal shines on special divi. (Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was down 0.9% at 7,317.65 in afternoon trade on Friday amid growing concerns about the spread of the coronavirus.Hargreaves Lansdown retreated after it posted a rise in interim pre-tax profit but a drop in net new business, although it did say there had been signs of an improvement in investor confidence since the general election.In the six months to the end of December, net new business declined 9% to £2.3bn, but pre-tax profit increase 12% to £171.1m and revenue rose 9% to £257.9m. Assets under administration grew 22% to £105.2bn and active client numbers were up 4% to 1.274m. On the upside, Polymetal was the standout gainer after the board of directors approved a special dividend of $0.20 per share for the year ended 31 December 2019.RBC Capital Markets said: "We have been flagging the potential for Polymetal to pay a special dividend for some time, seeing it as a key part of our investment thesis. "Carnival was on the front, having suffered heavy losses a day earlier as thousands of passengers on one of its cruise ships were put on lockdown amid suspected cases of coronavirus.Hotel chain InterContinental, British Airways and Iberia parent IAG and budget airline easyJet were also higher, having been hit recently on concerns about the impact of the coronavirus.SSE was in the green as it reiterated its full-year earnings guidance but said it was behind its renewable energy target for the first nine months of the financial year.FTSE 100 - RisersPolymetal International (POLY) 1,284.00p 1.42%Carnival (CCL) 3,209.00p 1.29%Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 589.00p 1.20%InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 4,722.50p 1.20%easyJet (EZJ) 1,404.50p 1.19%Persimmon (PSN) 3,070.00p 0.99%Informa (INF) 781.80p 0.98%Imperial Brands (IMB) 1,941.40p 0.96%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 577.60p 0.91%SSE (SSE) 1,513.50p 0.83%FTSE 100 - FallersHargreaves Lansdown (HL.)

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Hargreaves Landsdown takes £2.3m hit over Woodford fund collapse. Bosses at Hargreaves agreed to not charge fees to customers who had invested in the Woodford funds, which had been heavily promoted via the platform. They also announced an overhaul of its Wealth 50 list of recommendations, after the former star stock picker’s fund was listed until it was frozen last June. As a result of waiving its fees – which Mr Woodford declined to do – Hargreaves saw net new business hit £2.31 billion in the six months to December 31 – down 9% on the same period last year. Despite the slowdown in new business, total revenues rose 9% to £257.9 million in the period, with pre-tax profits also up 12% to £171.1 million.

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Statistics agency Eurostat said that the GDP in the 19 members that use the euro currency climbed by just 0.1% compared to the previous three-month period, below the 0.2% growth that analysts had forecast. Eurostat said that prices grew by 1.4% compared to the same month in 2019, largely due to a jump in food, alcohol, tobacco, and energy prices. The FTSE 100 (^FTSE) index was down by 0.7% in London after the country’s chief medical officer said that two patients were being treated by the National Health Service in England. Consumer confidence climbed for the second straight month in January thanks to a small post-election “Boris bounce,” according to new data. While the consumer confidence index rose by 2 points to –9 this month, the indicator remains firmly in negative territory, and the growth in confidence was slower than in December, market research firm GfK said.

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It is the third law firm to launch an investigation after Leigh Day and Slater and Gordon, which launched legal cases in November 2019. 'The FTSE 100 company continued to heavily promote Woodford and its Equity Income Fund as "best buy" – only withdrawing its recommendation when the fund was suspended following poor performance,' she said. Hargreaves Lansdown chief executive Chris Hill has previously apologised to investors following the suspension of Woodford's UK Equity Income fund last year, which eventually led to the suspension of Woodford's UK Income Focus fund, and the eventual collapse of Woodford Investment Management itself. Our priority right now is to support our clients and keep them informed,' he said last year.

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'Even the best fund managers go through poor periods, and we're usually happy to support them through weaker periods, providing we retain conviction in their ability to perform well over the long run. But we've started to doubt Tom Dobell's ability to outperform,' said Hargreaves Lansdown investment analyst Dominic Rowles. Rowles said that while Dobell's value style had long been out of favour, the fund's performance issues ran deeper than that, and had continued to lag rivals even during periods when value stocks have rallied. Hargreaves kept the fund in its buy list earlier this year despite poor performance and concerns over the fund's exposure to unquoted companies, as it slashed the number of fund recommendations, rebranding the Wealth 150 as the Wealth 50. In July Hargreaves dropped two of the Wealth 50's best performing funds, Lindsell Train UK Equity and Lindsell Train Global Equity, due to their growing stakes in its own shares.

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The firm issued a statement after the Financial Timesreported that the FCA had contacted multi-manager fund managers on their Woodford position over fears that potential contagion could spark a liquidity crisis. 'As the market leader we are in contact with the FCA on a regular basis regarding a whole host of issues, the nature of these are confidential,' a spokesperson for Hargreaves said, denying the FCA had launched an official investigation. Investors in the £3 billion fund are forecast to lose 33% after Woodford was sacked from the fund as the wind-up process begun on 15 October. Overall the firm has six funds with positions in the Equity Income fund, three of which are listed it in its top 10. Others firms being probed include Quilter Investors, which has around 1% exposure to Woodford Equity Income across its £8.9 billion multi-manager range.

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