Good morning, and welcome to our 2024 half-year results. We have a packed agenda this morning, with a lot of ground to cover in explaining how we're performing well and our positioning for further success in the years ahead. In a moment, I'll set out a high-level summary of the first half. I'll then hand over to Craig to take you through the operating and financial results for the period. Craig will also provide an update on our existing programs of work around our simpler and more comparable future charging structure and historic ongoing service evidence review. Finally, I'll discuss the business review and what we've completed, and what this means for our future direction. Before we start, though, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Craig, who will be retiring as CFO later this year.
It's been an absolute pleasure to work alongside him since I joined the business, and I've been grateful for his support throughout. We all wish him well for the future. While Craig will be missed, I look forward to working with his successor, Caroline Waddington, who will join the business in September. Looking back to February this year, I talked about my initial perspectives, and I also set out that one of my priorities was to continue to get deep into the fabric of SJP. Having immersed myself in this business and, in recent months, worked through the process of our business review, I'm pleased to say that my conviction in SJP has only grown stronger. SJP is positioning for further success, and I'm really excited for the future. At a high level, we're the scale market leader in an industry that has embedded structural growth across all market segments.
We have a distinct business model, which will enable us to capitalize on the significant market opportunity, leading to sustained growth in our funds under management. This means we will continue to deliver great outcomes for all our stakeholders, including strong and highly visible earnings growth and improving returns for shareholders. So, onto business performance in the first half. 2024 has presented a mixed environment for U.K. consumers. On one hand, we've seen headline inflation falling, and most economists predict that we're getting closer to an easing in interest rates. This has improved consumer confidence, albeit from a low base. On the other hand, the U.K. economy is not yet firing on all cylinders, and mortgage costs continue to rise for many households, impacting disposable income.
It takes time for the full force of inflationary pressure to be felt, and with many households still on fixed-rate mortgage deals from before the recent rise in interest rates, this will remain a feature for some time. Therefore, while it has naturally been encouraging to see signs of improvement in market conditions, it's too early to draw firm conclusions on the shape of things to come. Against this backdrop, we are very pleased with our business and financial performance for the first half of the year. Operationally, it's been a very busy period for us. We've completed our business review, which I'll come onto in the final section of this presentation.
We've made progress on our key programs of work to implement our simpler and more comparable charging structure, which comes into effect in the second half of 2025, and our historic ongoing service evidence review, and Craig will provide more detail on these shortly. We've improved our constructive dialogue with the FCA, as we ensure they understand the progress we are making with our key programs of work, and we all have a clear understanding of their expectations for the wider industry. We've successfully launched our national brand campaign. From a financial perspective, we've performed strongly. Our funds under management reached a record of GBP 181.9 billion at the end of June. This was a result of the continued scale of client investment flows, which improved as the first half unfolded, and the continued strong retention of client investments and a positive period for client investment returns.
This highlights the resilience of our model, the underlying strength of the relationships our advisors have with clients, the quality of the advice given, and the long-term nature of our client proposition. Our underlying post-tax cash result was GBP 205 million, which is in line with the prior year and demonstrates a business in good health and one where our clients continue to recognize the value of quality advice in an increasingly complex world. So there's been a lot going on, but we're in good shape and are well set for the rest of the year. Let me hand over to Craig now to talk through the detail of the first half before I come back to discuss the business review and what it means for SJP.
Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. As Mark has said, this is my last results presentation as CFO. and I'm pleased to be signing off with a strong set of financials. Let's start by analyzing some of the detail beneath our flows performance in the first half. Against the market backdrop that Mark has outlined, our gross inflows were GBP 8.5 billion for the first half, which is 6% higher than for the same period in 2023. Having reported a 5% reduction for Q1, this reflects an increase of 18% for Q2, representing our first comparative quarter growth since 2021. Whilst it wouldn't be right to draw conclusions from one quarter of experience, we're encouraged by these early signs of improvement.
This growth has been led by our pensions business, which has increased by 14% in the first half, outweighing the impact of modest declines in our investment in unit trust wrappers, which tend to be more sensitive to client confidence and capacity to invest. We know that many clients continue to feel cost of living pressures, including the impact of high mortgage rates, and this has contributed to lower average case sizes. At the same time, however, we've seen case volumes continue to rise, reflecting high levels of engagement between our growing numbers of clients and advisors. Turning to outflows, these remain at an elevated level, and cost of living pressures have again undoubtedly contributed to this, with clients drawing upon savings in order to meet immediate needs.
We are, however, encouraged that the flow rate appears to have stabilized in the second quarter, breaking the trend of gradual increases that we saw throughout 2023 and into the first quarter of 2024. As a result of improving gross inflows and stabilizing outflows, we've generated GBP 1.9 billion of net inflows in the first half, once again demonstrating the resilience and strength of our advice-led business model and continuing our long track record of consistent net inflows. We're very pleased that we've been able to deliver strong investment returns for clients in the first half, and this, together with net inflows, has resulted in FUM increasing by 8% to a record GBP 181.9 billion, with average FUM over the first half some 14% higher compared to the same period in the previous year.
Over the last year, we've made some important decisions that have resulted in significant programs of work that I'll touch upon now. Firstly, we announced that we're implementing a simpler and more comparable charging structure across our entire value chain. This program has completed its planning and mobilization phase and is now well into execution and delivery. Our expectation remains to implement the new structure in the second half of 2025, with a total implementation cost of between GBP 140 million and GBP 160 million before tax, in line with guidance we gave in October last year and reiterated in February this year.
In February, we announced that we'd be undertaking a review linked to the historic evidencing and delivery of ongoing servicing, and we established a provision of GBP 426 million before tax to provide for potential client refunds, together with the administrative cost of getting the job done. The project started in March, and since then, we've built the foundations of what we need in order to deliver this program effectively. We've therefore put in place the right team, the right systems, and the right processes that will enable us to move with pace during the second half and into 2025. We expect to make significant progress with client contact in the second half and start making payments where appropriate.
You'll recall that the provision we made was based on an extrapolation from statistically meaningful data gathered at the start of the year, with an estimate of administration costs that I've mentioned. We remain confident that the provision is an appropriate estimate of the ultimate cost, and as such, there will be no changes to the provision other than for the IFRS discounting. Finally, I should take this opportunity to remind you that we've not yet taken any credit for amounts that we will recover from the Partnership. We have, however, now communicated the circumstances under which we expect to recover, and once we're able to reliably quantify the recovery, we'll take credit for it in the accounts. Moving on to the overall financial results themselves, I'm pleased to report a strong outturn for the first half of 2024 across each of our key measures.
I'll take you through our cash result and our solvency position in a moment, and then touch on shareholder returns. I'm not gonna cover IFRS and EEV, but information about these metrics can be found in the appendix to the slide deck for those of you who are interested. So looking at the underlying post-tax cash result, this has decreased by just 1% compared to the same period in 2023, despite the significant additional short-term investment that we're making to implement our simplified charging structure. Indeed, if these costs were excluded, then the underlying cash result would have increased by 11%, representing a very strong outcome given the operating environment.
It's also worth flagging that this increase comes despite the impact of the charge cap we introduced in the second half of 2023 for long duration bonds and pensions, as well as the headwind of a higher rate of corporation tax. With a further GBP 49.5 billion of funds in gestation that will begin to contribute to the cash result over the next six years, we're well set up for highly visible future growth in net income. Moving on to our financial position, the solvency ratio for our life companies stood at 164% at the end of the period, which is significantly ahead of our approach of holding 130% of the standard formula requirement. This financial strength is also reflected in our credit ratings. Meanwhile, our partner lending book remains in good health.
This lending activity is an important part of the business model, allowing growing partner businesses to take on those of retiring or downsizing partners, supported by loans that are facilitated by SJP. As well as being a key part of our advisor offering, this also ensures continuity of service for clients, enabling us to benefit from exceptionally high retention rates. The loans that we make are subject to prudent affordability criteria, and they're secured against the value of ongoing partner income that emerges on our systems. This means that repayments are deducted at source. Whilst the higher interest rates that we've experienced of late have been inherently unwelcome for all businesses that borrow, the fact that market values have been strong has been a welcome benefit in terms of cash flow. Finally, I'll comment on shareholder returns.
We announced in February that we'd be revising our approach, with the expectation that total annual returns will be set at 50% of the full year underlying cash result, and for the next three years, this will comprise GBP 0.18 per share in annual dividends declared, with the balance distributed through share buybacks. In line with this revised approach, the Board has declared an interim dividend of GBP 0.06 per share, equivalent to a third of the full year total. In addition to this, the Board has approved an interim share buyback of GBP 32.9 million, matching the cost of the interim dividend and representing some 1% of the current market capitalization. So that's all from me. All in all, a very encouraging set of financial results, and now back to Mark, who's gonna cover the outcomes of our business review.
Thank you, Craig, for walking us through a strong financial outcome for the first half. Now, on to the business review. We began this work earlier this year with the aim of taking a step back to assess the development of our marketplace, hold a mirror up to our business, and ensuring we've got a clear path forward so that we drive great outcomes for our clients and all our stakeholders. Ultimately, this work has reinforced our conviction that SJP continues to be a very strong business with a fantastic opportunity ahead. As I mentioned at the start of this presentation, we're positioning for further success. However, achieving this won't happen by accident. So let me talk you through the review and what this means for how we plan to take the business forward.
I'll start by giving an overview of our market and how we expect it to develop in the years ahead. I'll then talk through our strengths, which came through clearly in the review. Finally, I'll take you through our future priorities and focus for the business. So firstly, our market. We've done a lot of work assessing our market to consider not just what it looks like today, but how it might develop in the years ahead. What's evident is that the market opportunity is compelling. At a high level, U.K. individuals today have around GBP 3.3 trillion in liquid investable assets spread across the broad spectrum of client segments.
What's exciting is that the marketplace is expected to grow further into the future at around 7% per annum, compound over the next 7 years, driven by a combination of structural and cyclical factors, including asset appreciation and growing provision for retirement. Now, naturally, some segments are expected to grow more quickly than others, with growth most rapid at the upper end of the wealth market. The U.K. wealth market today is served by a range of different type of providers, from banks, to pension providers, to D2C platforms. Where we choose to operate is the advised part of the market, where clients want and need the support of a trusted financial advisor. While our marketplace has experienced significant change in the regulatory landscape, it's important to recognize that there continues to be strong support amongst politicians, policymakers, and regulators for a healthy U.K. financial advice industry.
Recent research demonstrates that many people in the U.K. are not saving enough for retirement, and that retirees are running out of money. A recent report states that 38% of people are on track for living standards in retirement that are below the minimum level set out by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. This is up from 35% in 2023, showing the problem is getting worse. Financial advice has a critical role to play in closing the savings gap. Financial advice supports financial well-being, peace of mind, and can help turn people in the U.K. from savers to investors. This is critical, given the long-term outperformance of risk-based investing compared to cash and savings rates. Within that fully advised landscape, we are the most significant operator.
With our FUM representing around 9% of this GBP 2.1 trillion marketplace, it's clear there remains significant opportunities for us to grow further. There are nearly 4 million mass affluent individuals who are open to advice but are not yet receiving it. Their wealth is not captured within the fully advised market today. We think there is also scope to take share within the fully advised market.... This includes at the upper end, where we know many individuals can feel underserved by organizations that are moving further and further up the wealth spectrum. Those drivers of demand are not going away. If anything, they're growing stronger. I will call out three factors which are strengthening the drivers of demand for advice. Individuals feel overwhelmed by, one, the range of investment products available to them.
Two, the plethora of information available via the press, the internet, and through social media channels, some of which is misleading and unregulated. And three, the complexity of the pension rules and frequency with which they change, making it difficult to make the right decision. As a result, we expect the fully advised market to grow significantly as investable wealth moves from unadvised solutions to the advised space, providing either greater opportunity for SJP. That's a great backdrop for a scale, long-term, and high-conviction business like ours. We're already well-positioned to capture that opportunity and grow our funds under management, because we have a number of key strengths which came through clearly in the business review. We have the right business model.
It's a model that reflects our belief that we drive the best outcome for our clients by providing them with a full end-to-end service, from financial advice and planning through to platform and administration and investment management. This approach has helped us attract and retain clients over time, and we're confident that maintaining our commitment to providing a full service proposition will drive continued success. So let me be clear that while we're unbundling our charges next year, we're not unbundling our proposition. We have the Partnership, a scale and high-quality group of financial advice professionals, who lead our award-winning proposition, and who make a real difference to clients' lives. Partners run their businesses, tailoring them to the local communities in which they operate, meaning we have a local presence throughout the UK.
In fact, if you were to consider each of our partner practices a branch, we have a greater presence across the UK's villages, towns, and cities than the five largest UK high street banks combined. In a market where building trusted personal relationships is key, the scale and proximity to our client base is critical, driving satisfaction, retention, and advocacy. Now, we provide extensive support to the Partnership, from learning and development, business advice, market-leading technical support, through to our backing for effective advisor succession planning. All of this support helps our advisors look after clients well and run high-quality businesses, underpinning growth and retention of client funds under management. We have the Academy, the largest and most comprehensive financial advisor training and development scheme in the UK marketplace. Over the last five years, our Academy has trained around half of those advisors who have joined the financial advice industry.
It complements our experienced recruitment pipeline, providing us with a rich seam of advisor talent, supporting our capacity to serve more clients over time, as well as attract younger clients to our business. The Academy is also critical to underpinning long-term partner succession planning and continuity for clients, and it keeps the average age of our Partnership some 10 years younger than the wider marketplace. That's a decade of additional longevity embedded in our model. We've got a distinct investment management approach that works well for clients, offering scalable solutions to deliver good outcomes. It encompasses two key components: our market-leading asset allocation and our Select, Monitor, Change process. Our asset allocation process leverages our unrivaled access to the leading asset managers from across the world and makes use of our own investment team's expertise to manage our proposition from the top down.
The team considers a broad range of factors, including extreme valuations, financial market fundamentals, the economic environment, risk, and many, many more. Through rigorous research and debate, this process forms the SJP House View and drives the construction of our portfolios, blending active, passive, and systematic strategies. Our approach has enabled us to build, maintain, and develop the investment solutions that our clients need. Select, Monitor, Change is the way we build our IMA from the bottom up. We select world-class and external managers to manage our funds, accessing diverse investment styles to ensure our funds are positioned to deliver strong investment performance. We continually monitor our managers to ensure they're achieving the fund's objectives. A significant benefit of our approach is it provides us with the opportunity to flexibly change fund managers.
As you can see from the slide, our portfolios have each performed well over the past year, and we're confident that our IMA works for clients. Our core technology foundations are in place, built through our previous investment into Bluedoor, Salesforce, and we have no need to re-platform our business.... In recent years, we've made steps forward with our digital experience, including launching our app. But to deliver the leading client and advisor experience of the future at scale, we recognize there is more to do. We must invest to supplement our strong core and develop adjacent technologies to drive strong client outcomes and a superior experience at scale. We have a rich data universe available to us, but we're not yet fully leveraging it to drive intelligent insights, and we plan to build our capabilities in this area.
Action in this area, together with a clear opportunity to invest in adjacent technologies, is an important need coming out of our business review. These strengths that I've covered have resulted in incredible success over three decades or more. We've achieved compound growth in our client base of around 8% per year since 2015, which means we have around 1 million clients, double what we had back then. That's 1 million clients being helped by a trusted advisor to make better decisions around their finances. 1 million clients with the confidence to invest for the future. 1 million clients on the way to achieving financial well-being. This helps explain our ability to not just attract new client investments to SJP, but to retain them, too. Our high long-term retention rate means we've always achieved annual net inflows, underpinning our strong growth in funds under management.
And because we've grown funds under management over time, we've also delivered strong growth in the cash result. Our business model has clearly worked very well in the past. It's working well today, and I'm confident it will continue to do so in the future. Yet it's clear we need to evolve. We need to tailor our proposition to clients and advisors. We also need to work smarter to capture economies of scale as we grow. This will ensure we remain the home of financial advice in the years to come, better equipped to capture the market opportunity ahead and positioned for further success. Having covered our market and our strengths, which have got us to where we are today, I'm now going to move on to our future priorities and focus.
As I said earlier, the business review has helped us to define a clear path forward so we can drive great outcomes for our clients and all our stakeholders. This has led to our refreshed strategy, which is presented on this slide. It's underpinned by a redefined purpose, which is to empower clients with invaluable advice to realize bolder ambitions. Now, a defining feature of the SJP community is its clients' focus, along with our collective, unwavering belief in the value of advice. And so our redefined purpose articulates what drives all of us. Sitting underneath our purpose, going forward, our refreshed strategy will be based around four pillars: Brilliant Basics, Differentiated Client Proposition, Leading Adviser Offering , and Performance-Focused Organization. I will explain what we mean by each of these shortly, but first, I will explain the two different phases that our strategy is split into.
We know that for all our qualities of the business, we have a lot of work to do ahead of us over the next 24 months. We need to deliver a simpler and more comparable charging structure, refund those clients where ongoing servicing is not being evidenced historically, and we need to optimize our cost base. I characterize this initial phase as strengthening our fundamentals for the future. Meanwhile, we will also start to invest in initiatives that will help SJP to drive sustained growth over time. This investment activity begins in 2025, once we begin realizing savings, but much of the investment will be weighted from 2026, once we have neared completion of our Strengthen phase and are approaching the Amplify phase. Coming back to the 4 pillars of our strategy, the first of which is Brilliant Basics.
To deliver for our stakeholders and maintain our leadership position, it's imperative that we don't just do the basics, but we do them brilliantly. This encompasses a range of initiatives that we will undertake over time to improve how we operate and deliver for clients and advisors. To bring this to life, I'll focus on three initial priority areas. First, we have grown the business in Partnership at pace for many years. In doing so, we have accommodated multiple ways of working, and when you're working at scale, this can result in inefficiencies that can impact productivity and operational effectiveness across the SJP community. Going forward, we will standardize and simplify our processes, removing unnecessary options and complexity. From speaking to advisors, I know this is a direction of travel they support.
Second, because we're a scale business with a strong technology core, we have, as I've indicated, a real opportunity to better leverage our rich data universe and drive benefits in a number of areas. Our data capability is not where we want it to be yet, so we're going to be investing to Strengthen it, both in terms of human expertise and in terms of systems and analytics, so that we can improve the quality and consistency of data and enhance our ability to process that data to drive intelligent insights.... The third area is that we will continue to be a driving voice for our industry, leading the conversation in UK wealth management. We will be passionate advocates for financial advice, and we will promote what we and our industry peers bring to so many clients across the UK.
We've made brilliant progress in increasing awareness of our brand through our national advertising campaign, but what's really important to me is that we promote the value of what we and all our industry deliver, the value of advice. As more people understand the value of advice, the more the advice market will grow, which is positive for the industry and the UK economy as a whole. So much of the conversation of wealth management centers around cost. Now, I'm really clear this is important, and it matters to clients, but there isn't enough discussion around the benefits of financial advice. As well as measurable financial benefits, advice also provides reassurance of knowing that your savings are working hard for you and that your loved ones are being well provided for, and their well-being and your well-being and your confidence for the future grows and is stronger.
All of this is what we call invaluable advice. We know our clients recognize this, but we will use our industry leadership to make sure this is better understood by the media, policymakers, and regulators so that more people take advice. Specifically, we'll work closely with the UK government and the FCA to help them close the savings and advice gaps and on the opportunities presented within the Advice Guidance Boundary Review. I'll now move on to the second pillar of our strategy, our Differentiated Client Proposition. We plan to invest in broadening our investment shelf so we can offer clients a greater range of investment options and exposure to a broader range of asset classes. This is about giving clients choice, diversification, and package solutions that support the delivery of positive long-term outcomes.
In the short to medium term, our work is focused on developing our investment shelf in three areas. First, we're strong advocates for active investing, but it might surprise some to know that today we already have around 20% of our firm in passive and systematic strategies. We see an opportunity to further develop our long-term proposition, in particular, developing more variants of packaged multi-asset solutions at different pricing points and risk levels. Second, we already have a private asset offering for the retail market, and we think there is scope to provide a deeper alternatives proposition. This would be particularly attractive for high-net-worth clients, and it is a market where we expect the opportunities to continue to evolve.
Third, we recognize that an integrated and accessible cash proposition is an important offering for all client types, and it is therefore an area we will be doing more work on in the future. While on the face of it, these changes are more of an evolution to what we do today, we believe offering clients greater choice will support our future success. Next, we plan to develop our digital channels further, investing so we can introduce new functionality to our mobile app, as well as enhanced desktop and tablet capabilities. This will give clients greater flexibility in how they engage with their financial planning. We also plan to harness data to develop user insights, which will enable us to deliver a more personalized experience for clients over time, helping us to support them. We are a business with nearly one million clients.
We serve and support clients with relatively simple needs through to those with complex financial affairs and very significant investable wealth. To deliver value for such a range of clients, it's important we invest in better tailoring our service and proposition across our client segments. We will continue to deliver for the mass affluent segment, but we know that the high-net-worth market is expected to be one of the fastest-growing segments. We therefore see the opportunity to develop a more focused and dedicated high-net-worth proposition. We will not only enhance the service we provide for our current clients in this space, but we will also equip ourselves to capture share in this growth market. I've already spoken about developing elements of our investment proposition, including our alternate asset capability.
Offering services to high-net-worth clients also means providing training and support so that more advisors are able to provide the often more complex financial advice these clients need and developing the range of ancillary services they can access. We aim to grow our funds under management over time, and investing to capitalize on this growth segment will support our ambitions. In addition to our work in the high-net-worth space, we will ensure that we continue to add value to the small minority of our clients who have opted out of receiving ongoing advice. By delivering a Differentiated Client Proposition, which is tailored to our clients' needs, we will be better positioned to deliver great outcomes for them. This will underpin growth and retention of client investments, helping us scale further in the decades to come.
Our third pillar is about ensuring SJP remains the best place to be a financial advisor in the UK. I said earlier that it is our advisors who can change clients' lives, and we're proud to have more advisors than anyone else in the UK. Scale is important, but so, too, is quality, and we're equally proud that we have more advisors with chartered status than anyone else across our financial planning profession. This combination of scale and quality means our positive impact is considerable. In much the same ways that we should always develop and enhance our proposition for clients, as the home of financial advice, we must also do this for our advisors and continue to set the standard. Firstly, we will continuously challenge ourselves on how we can improve our market-leading Academy program.
We've been running our Academy program for over 10 years now, and it's something we're really proud of. Over the last 10 years, our Academy has evolved in terms of both scale and delivery. Given the decline in the number of qualified financial advisors in the U.K. over the last three decades, it's imperative that our Academy delivers a pipeline of quality advisors. We facilitate the recruitment of those coming out of the Academy into the Partnership, ensuring that partner businesses seeking to grow and those seeking a succession plan are provided with high-quality, productive advisors. This is a key strand of our support for the Partnership. As such, we plan to continually upgrade our Academy to ensure it continues to focus on delivering high-quality, productive advisors to the Partnership and equips them with everything they need for successful careers.
Secondly, one of our key differentiating factors in our advisor proposition is our market-leading Business Sale and Purchase scheme, which plays a key role in supporting partner succession planning and continuity of client servicing. This is critical to driving the outstanding client retention rates we continue to achieve. So it's important that we maintain the effectiveness of the scheme as the Partnership continues to evolve in the future. As the Partnership continues to evolve, so must our broader support model, which is our third initial priority area. There is no such thing as a typical partner business today. It comprises businesses very large, very small, those in their infancy, and those who've been here for two or three decades, and from all areas of the UK. Their needs are not uniform, they are diverse.
That means we should be more deliberate in how we support each of them, targeting what they need to thrive. This may be training or ongoing qualifications, technology tools to help manage client engagements, specialist technical support, or consulting services. Support to help partners go from running good businesses to great businesses. Doing all of this will facilitate partners to run more scalable and efficient businesses that support growing numbers of clients, increase productivity, and higher funds under management. Going forward, our focus will be on the quality and productivity of the Partnership. Maintaining the quality of the Partnership is key to developing long-term, trusted relationships with clients, which in turn drives great client outcomes. We also have an ambition to drive long-term improvements in productivity, which will help us achieve our growth ambitions.
The final pillar of our strategy is that we must become a more Performance-Focused Organization with the culture of delivering the very best outcome for all our stakeholders. Our immediate priorities are to embed high performance into our culture by empowering our people and driving clear accountability through a new leadership framework and suite of values, maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation and optimizing our cost base, delivering a more efficient operating model that supports our strategy and will free up significant capacity to invest in the initiatives I've set out across our four pillars. Looking at this final priority in more detail, we recognize there is opportunity for us to become a more efficient organization.
So having looked across our addressable cost base of some GBP 670 million, we've identified a broad range of potential future savings as we align to our redefined purpose and refreshed strategy. We will, therefore, undertake a cost and efficiency program focused on five key areas. We will improve our demand management, eliminating avoidable spend. We will redesign our operating model to better support our refreshed strategic focus. We will optimize our procurement, consolidating vendors and securing best terms. We will simplify our technology estate, and we will innovate to develop greater levels of automation in our routine activities and processes. Now, we have an ambition to reduce our addressable cost base by about GBP 100 million per annum before tax, which is equivalent to approximately 15%.
We will have completed the work to achieve these cost savings by the end of 2026, with one-off cost to achieve of approximately GBP 80 million. This means that up to 2030, we estimate cumulative savings, net of cost to achieve, of approaching GBP 500 million. In creating the significant capacity, we have the opportunity to fund investment in a disciplined manner.... This investment will enable us to deliver on our strategic initiatives, further underpin our long-term growth ambitions, and improve the cash result. We expect to invest a total of around GBP 250 million through to 2030, or around half the capacity we will create over this period. Our initial business priority is to Strengthen the business, but as we move towards our Amplify phase and our cost savings emerge, we'll use these savings to increase the scale of our investment.
Our priorities at this stage will be on enhancing our technology and data capabilities, the client proposition, and broadening the investment shelf, all of which I've spoken about already this morning. These will support our operational performance, advisor productivity growth, and further enhance our client offering. So we've included in the appendix a simple illustrative modeling guide that sets out how you might expect to see the impact of these cost savings and investments as they emerge over time. But for now, I want to walk you through the net effect of all of this. This slide shows that the overall impact, which includes all expected cost to achieve, will be broadly neutral to the cost base through to the end of 2026, with the cost to achieve and reinvestment approximately equal to the net savings over this period.
After this, the programs will have a net positive impact that builds up to a full ongoing savings of GBP 70 million per annum by 2029. The savings set out in the slide will improve our underlying cash result and create significant value over time, though for modeling purposes, you will, of course, need to net them down for tax. That's how we expect our cost base to evolve in the medium term, but it's also important to consider how we see the utilization of our capital resources going forwards. Our first priority will always be the safety of client investments, which we ensure by meeting all regulatory solvency, working capital, and liquidity requirements, and maintaining an investment-grade credit rating. These requirements grow as the business grows.
After this, we will invest in the core capabilities of the business, including ensuring we maintain and evolve our technology systems, build our digital capabilities, and invest the capital necessary to support our partner succession proposition. Next, we will provide reliable returns to shareholders. We will return 50% of underlying cash without impacting our ability to invest in the business. Finally, we will consider returning excess capital to shareholders. We don't anticipate additional returns in the immediate future as we complete the ongoing programs of work and invest in the priorities described in our strategy. However, in the medium term, we will consider returning additional capital over and above our requirements to invest in the business at attractive returns.
I see being deliberate and disciplined in how we manage capital allocation as critical to ensuring we have a well-invested business that drives returns and creates sustained value for our shareholders. So to summarize, we have a redefined purpose and a refreshed strategy. This will see us embrace change, drive growth, simplify and standardize, exercise discipline around costs, and focus on accountability and execution. In doing all of this, the future for SJP will be very exciting. So what will success look like? We will continue to be the best place to be a financial advisor in the U.K., with leading advocacy across our Partnership. SJP colleagues will feel empowered and engaged through our high-performance culture, advocating our purpose. We will be a business with a growing base of clients investing and staying with us for the long term.
As we continue to attract new business, maintain high levels of client retention, and deliver for clients through our IMA, I see us delivering mid- to high single-digit annual growth in funds under management over time. While near-term profit growth will reflect the structural impact of transitioning to our simplified charging structure, as we announced last October, we expect to see the cash result accelerate in 2027 and beyond, doubling between 2023 and 2030. Importantly, much of this rapid growth is highly predictable because of those changes that we are making to our charges. So coming back to what underpins all of this, I joined SJP because I believed in the value of what SJP delivers for its clients. And while there's a lot to do, my belief has only grown stronger, and I look forward to an exciting and successful future for SJP.
We are the home of invaluable advice. We exist to empower clients with invaluable advice to realize bolder ambitions. I want SJP to be admired as a business with the hallmarks of trust, excellence, high performance, and the constant pursuit of improvement. Thank you for listening, and do please stay tuned into this webcast for our live Q&A, which will kick off shortly.
We will now take a pause for Q&A. The Q&A session will begin at 9:30 A.M. BST. Thank you.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. It's Mark Fitzpatrick here. Before we open up for questions, I wanted to reiterate three key takeaways from our half-year results announcement and the presentation you have just seen. Firstly, our business is performing well. We have delivered robust business performance and strong financial performance during the first half of 2024, demonstrating the continued resilience of our business model despite the challenges I set out earlier in the year. We have seen high levels of activity and engagement between our advisors and our clients, contributing to positive flows. We have achieved record funds under management, delivered a good outturn for the cash result, and grown the client base, so we remain in good shape. Secondly, we are positioning for further success in an exciting market with structural growth drivers and rising demand for advice.
We have a redefined purpose and a refreshed strategy, which will see us embrace change, drive growth, simplify and standardize, and exercise discipline around costs. As we continue to attract new business, maintain high levels of client retention, and deliver for clients through our investment management approach, I am confident that we will be able to deliver mid to high single-digit annual growth in funds under management over time and double the underlying cash result from 2023 to 2030. Thirdly, we expect to deliver on our ambitions. We will increase strategic investment in the business, which will be funded through optimizing our cost base. Our ambition is to save approaching GBP 500 million through to 2030, net of the costs to achieve. We plan to reinvest approximately half of these savings once they have been realized to drive future growth.
Our priorities for investment will be enhancing our technology and data capabilities, expanding our client proposition, and broadening our investment shelf. These will support our operational performance, advisor productivity growth, and further enhance our client offering. All of this means I'm really excited for our future, and my conviction in SJP is strong, and we have a fantastic opportunity ahead. We'll open up now for questions, so over to the operator, please.
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question on today's call, please press Star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. When preparing to ask a question, please ensure you are unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Enrico Bolzoni from J.P. Morgan. Enrico, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you, and good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So one question on the very exciting plan of doubling underlying cash results. Just wanted to understand the thinking behind. So if I simplistically look at where consensus is sitting for underlying cash results for, let's say, 2028, I add, net of tax, the GBP 70 million cost benefit that you, that you plan to achieve. Still, I, you know, I would need to imply above 20% CAGR in underlying cash results in twenty, in 2029 and 2030.
So we're just keen to understand if you can give some color on whether, you know, what is gonna drive this, this last acceleration, or contrary to that, if maybe you think that consensus into 2028 is a bit soft, so there's gonna be some, some benefit before that. So that's, that's my first question. And the second question is on what you mentioned with respect to the high net worth segment, which sounds interesting. Can you just give us some color in terms of how you know how quickly you think you can maybe expand your market share there? What are the specific initiative you can roll out to achieve that? And will this be achieved via Rowan Dartington , or it would be as part of the main business? Thanks.
Enrico, thank you. Let me start with the second question, the high net worth, and then I'll ask, Craig to, chat about the, the consensus and the shape of that. So in terms of the, the high net worth, at the moment, we have, as you would have seen from the slides, about 9% of our firm is in the high net worth, part of segment of the market. And the market has about, I think, about 14% in the high net worth space. So we think there's an interesting opportunity to go for. We also believe that the high net worth segment is gonna grow slightly faster than the affluent and the mass affluent parts of the market, so that also makes it attractive.
I think what we're gonna look to do is, over the course of the Amplify phase of the strategy, which is really when we're gonna be focusing on the real kind of growth accelerators, we see high net worth being a key component of this. We think as we extend our investment proposition, that will help. I think as we support more of our advisors to be confident and comfortable engaging in this part of the market, we have some partners and advisors who are phenomenally successful and phenomenally good at supporting clients in this space. Clients in this space tend to have slightly more complex needs, and therefore ensuring that we are able to support both the partner and advisor and clients in this space is gonna be an important component of it as well.
As well as giving enhanced access to some of our specialist teams, both the advisor teams, but also some of the investment teams, as well. So we think it's an exciting opportunity ahead of us, but I don't think you should expect to see anything happening significantly over the course of the next couple of years in that space. Craig, on the first part?
Yeah, I think the other factor that you might need to take into account here is the what I would describe as the structural recovery that we see in underlying cash that really starts in 2027 onwards. And that's a reflection of the fact that in the years building up to that, so mid-middle of next year, say, in 2026, the cash result sees the removal of the initial charges, and by 2027 onwards, you begin to see those two feeders into what we currently call mature funds under management. So you get the benefits of new business coming in, but you also get the benefit of the unwind of those amounts that sit in gestation.
So I think the easiest way for me to answer the question, Enrico, is that consensus is always an average, and I think the output of any consensus will always depend on the modeling approach that's taken in those latter years.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next question comes from Andrew Crean, from Autonomous. Andrew, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. I had three questions. Firstly, could you talk a bit about the advisor numbers? I see they were relatively flat in the six months. What is your medium-term growth ambition on advisor numbers? Secondly, partner lending. Is there a plan to take all partner lending off balance sheet? And then thirdly, there's very little mention by you of Asia or DFM. And certainly DFM is in loss, it's supposed to be breaking even this year. Could you talk about whether you think SJP is still the best owner of those two businesses?
Andrew, thank you for your three questions. So let me start on the advisor numbers, and then I'll hand over to Craig for the partner lending, and then I'll come back around to the Asia DFM question. So in terms of advisor numbers, I think we continue to be confident effectively in our Partnership and in the growth of our Partnership. I think what we're gonna look to do is to really focus on driving productivity and supporting our partners in their quest to make sure that they are the top end of the quality that we see in the marketplace. We continue to see good pipeline in our Academy. The Academy continues to increase the number of advisors. The training that they get is very, very strong.
Indeed, over the last five years, we've trained around half of the new advisors in the industry through the Academy. So the Academy will continue to be an important component. We do expect advisor numbers over time to continue to grow. It's not the key statistic that I'm focusing on. I think our focus is on better utilizing the power of the largest group of advisors in the UK market by driving higher productivity and really enhancing the quality. And that's why one of the areas we're looking to invest in going forward, Andrew, is around how we improve the partner experience, how we improve the client experience through enhancing some of our technology. Our core technology stack is sound. As I mentioned earlier on today, the Bluedoor, Salesforce systems are sound.
See no need to change those. It's around the adjacencies that I think there's a lot that we can do to provide and make that whole process far more straight through, and enable our partners and advisors to spend more time in front of their clients, which is where they're at their best, rather than tied up in a whole lot of admin-related matters. Craig, do you wanna mention the Partner lending piece, please? Thank you.
Yeah. Hi, Andrew. The question was whether we could see a situation where it's all off balance sheets, and I don't think I can see that situation, but I can see a situation where more of it is off balance sheets. And if I think about the way this has developed over the years, it started very much as balance sheet activity. We then moved into what we call direct to partner lending, which makes use of other organizations' balance sheets, but involving guarantees. More recently, we moved towards securitization, and you use the expression off balance sheet. I think that's one way of looking at the objective, but the other way of thinking about the objective is non-recourse, and that's where securitizations can really work.
Because although from an accounting perspective, you're required to keep the loans on the balance sheet, they are actually non-recourse other than any junior notes. And then you'll have seen back in 2023, we did a material outright sale. And that sort of describes the life cycle of partner lending within SJP. And I think the corporate balance sheet, whether it's on the balance sheet itself or within the securitization, will always have a role to play in the origination of lending and the seasoning of lending before it moves into securitizations ready for outright sale.
So I think the answer to your question, put simply, is, no, I can't see it all being off balance sheet, but I think the objective that we've set for ourselves, quite rightly, is to get as much of it as is realistic off the balance sheet, whilst remaining in full control of what is actually a really important part of our group operations.
Great, thank you. And then, finally, Andrew, on the, Asia and DFM piece. Candidly, the business review really focused on the UK, which is, you know, kind of technically 97% of our business. I know the team have done a lot to improve performance in Asia and in, RD over the course of the last few years, and I think RD is still expected to hit breakeven in the second half of, of this year. So, you know, they're both great businesses, and we're gonna stay focusing on improving performance and reducing the net investment.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from David McCann from Deutsche Bank. David, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, morning, everyone. There are three questions from me as well, please. So you talked... First of all, you talked about, in the presentation about the improving relationship with the regulator. So I think, can we deduce from this that it's now highly unlikely that you'd have to make any further changes to the charging model over and above those you've already announced, or would that be a premature thing to think about? Second question is, what gave the Board the confidence to effectively bring forward the share buyback compared to what I think most people were expecting, given the multiple challenges and uncertainties you do still have in the business, obviously, ongoing advice and, you know, the implementation being just two of them.
And then the third question, just a more technical one: You talked about a high single-digit growth rate in funds under management. Can you confirm, are you talking in pounds or percentage? Thank you.
... Okay, David. Hi, good morning to you. Firstly, off the regulatory relationships, I think actually I asked the regulator before these calls in terms of what could I say if the question came up, and the view from the regulator was: Look, you can say that the relationship has improved. The relationship is getting stronger. It is a robust conversation, but it's a very open and a very, very transparent conversation. I think that's by and large what a regulator asks of any of the organizations that they regulate and what we ask of our regulator. So we're having a very frank, very open conversations with them. They know where we are in all the different components.
I'm not expecting there to be any, any real changes to the work around the fees, the fee structures, going forward. We're doing the heavy lifting, preparing for all the changes that we announced back or that Craig and the team announced back, back end of last year. So that's a key focus, and we're spending lots of time, lots of energy, ensuring that we can launch that successfully. In terms of the buyback, Craig?
Probably four things I'd cite, David. I'm sure there are others, but, the operating environment is something we, we take into account. The rhythm of emergence of value in the cash result that you can see in the numbers that we've published today. You, you talk about, the uncertainties, the, the fees and charges, changes, and that overarching project is making really good progress. And on the, on the subject of the provision, there's nothing that's happened that undermines our confidence that the level of provision that we set was, was adequate and appropriate. So taking all of those into account, the decision was made.
Yeah, thank you. Then your last question is, it's in terms of the mid- to high-single-digit, that's % growth that we're looking at, David.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Bye.
The next question comes from Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Larissa, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, and congratulations on very strong, flow numbers. Two quick ones from my side. The first one, in the implementation of the cost cutting as well as the investment in new initiatives, what do you consider the biggest hurdle to be? And then related to that, you mentioned simplification and automation of processes. Could you give us an indication of which areas you plan to focus on first, please?
Larissa, firstly, thank you for, thank you for that opening. In terms of the biggest hurdle around the element of the cost reduction, I think the biggest area there is ensuring in terms of doing it, we do it in a very controlled, very measured way, brings everybody along the journey, and that we don't inhibit our growth, opportunity, and potential we see ahead of us. We will be protecting the, you know, the efforts and energies around the work that we're doing in terms of the fee restructuring to make sure that continues, at pace.
In terms of the investment piece, again, it's gonna be a laser-like focus in terms of where we prioritize, where we ensure that we're gonna get best bang for buck, and very careful monitoring of benefits and benefit tracking, as we go through investment spend over the coming years. For simplification and automation, key thing for me is in terms of the interface that our advisors and their teams have with us, trying to automate that process as much as possible. I was with some of our guys earlier on this week, looking at some of the AI tools that we've been rolling out around our advice assistants. At the moment, we have multiple ways of doing things, multiple ways that people can submit new business.
And I think it's easier for clients, it's easier in the long term for our advisors and their teams, and it's much easier for our admin processing systems if we have one way of doing things and a simpler way of doing things. So that becomes straight through, becomes automated, and things happen once, and we minimize the amount of human interaction through the admin process, and we maximize the human interaction in front of clients on the financial planning stage. But thank you for those questions, Larissa.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Greg Simpson from BNP Paribas. Greg, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, yeah, morning, free from my end. First, firstly, could you talk a bit about the cadence of complaints in this period? I know last year we saw the spike. How has that kind of evolved this year in terms of the experience of incomings and the claims firms particular would be great. Second question would be, could you talk a bit about the impact of the loans on movements between the Partnership? How much of it is an obstacle for advisors from the Academy joining the Partnership, the fact that taking out a loan now is quite expensive, and a bit of kind of color on how that's kind of playing through.
And then thirdly, if I go for the latest disclosure around the cash emergence from gestation, if I compare the illustrative figure versus the stock of gestation, I get a 60 basis points margin. The same number at the full year stage was 57. So just wanted to check if there's any kind of moving parts there. Is 60 still a good figure for the illustrative emergence of cash and gestation? Thank you.
Perfect, Greg. Thank you. I'll start with talking about your first question, and then I'll hand over to Craig to deal with the loans and the cash emergence figure. So on the complaints element, unsurprisingly, you would have seen or we saw a spike in March after the announcement in terms of levels of complaints. Pleased to say that we've seen a dramatic falloff in those level of complaints over the course of the second quarter and into the beginning of the third quarter. So the level of complaints has come down dramatically and significantly. Craig, you okay on the loans and the-
Yeah. I suppose I'd split that into two. Let's think of it in terms of somebody who's already completed a transaction and somebody who may be minded at some point in the future to complete a transaction. As I said in my presentation, I think interest rates going up is always unwelcome for any business that borrows. That's very, very clear. But it's also important, having identified that as a headwind, to try and identify where the tailwinds are. They may not fully compensate, but the fact that the markets have performed in the way that they have is obviously positive for clients. But it's positive for advisors because that influences the cash flows that they receive.
And so I think the net position for somebody who's already borrowed will obviously differ business by business, but it is important to remember both sides of that equation, and that's very much reflected in the structure of the borrowing. For somebody contemplating a future transaction, I think it's always the case that there always has to be a point at where supply meets demand, so values will always vary. And that could push a value up or down, depending on what the perception of the operating environment is. But it's also important to remember that somebody taking out one of these loans will have a view of what the long-term rate is and what the long-term return from the business they're acquiring is.
So it's perhaps not as binary, but I think I'd go back to what I've said, that for any business that uses borrowing as a mechanism, I think it would be unwise for me to say anything other than high rates are generally, even on a net basis, unwelcome. But it doesn't whet the appetite of individuals who see a long-term career in the financial advice industry.
So, just if I can add to that, Craig. Approximately 80% of our folk that graduate from the Academy tend to move into existing Partnerships, existing businesses. So it's not like they have to kind of check on day one. They're coming in to support partners and established advisors along the way, and 20% might set up their own businesses, and for them, they may wish to buy in or they may wish to build up. But we effectively ensure before we let advisors loose in the big world, they're given a lot of support, a lot of encouragement, and a lot of oversight from our field team.
So by the time they kind of go it alone, as it were, they have an established footprint, they have an established business off which to be able to build. Right, Craig, on to gestation.
I think the final question was on gestation. So in short, yes, it's a good number. You do find that periodically there are refinements to the forward modeling for the impact that gestation will have as it unfolds into the cash result, but you should be using those figures.
Helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Ben Bathurst from RBC. Ben, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. I've got questions in three areas, as well as, if I may. I'll start with one on the advice evidencing provision. Craig, in your comments, I think you referenced the potential for some form of recovery for the Partnership or so from the Partnership, for the group. Can you elaborate on the circumstances when you think the group will be eligible for recovery for these issues from partners responsible? And would you expect all responsible partners to make some form of contribution, to a recovery? And secondly, in light of speculation around the potential for changes to pension tax relief, I wonder, could you update us on the proportion of gross inflows into SJP pensions that comes from transfers of DC pots that are effectively already invested rather than fresh cash?
And then finally, on the FUM and cash growth targets, I may have missed this, but can you just confirm what the market return assumption is that's underlying those targets now this morning? Thank you.
Okay. Ben, thank you for those questions. I'll try and deal with item one and three. And then while I'm doing that, hopefully, answer to question two can come up. In terms of the ongoing evidencing component or the historic evidencing component, the element of the. We have spoken to the partners. I think they are supportive of direction of travel that we are undertaking. I think they recognize that this is a broader issue and is unlikely to be idiosyncratic to SJP. We have agreed with the Partnership that they will make a contribution dependent upon the underlying evidence.
If there are some partners that, you know, kind of, records are missing or just not available, then those gaps will be more pronounced and therefore, they will make a larger contribution. For those where the evidence is intact and able to be demonstrated, then they would not make any contribution. So it's gonna be very much based on the overall evidence. And then in terms of the market return assumptions for the funds, I think we're looking at somewhere in our estimation going forward of a kind of 4%-5% element of return on that side going... And then the pensions tax fees?
Yeah, I think the question was around transfers. It's not something we disclose, but I think for the purpose of this conversation, you should assume that the majority of our pensions inflows are transfer related.
Okay, great. Very helpful.
Thanks, Vin.
Another quick reminder, that's star followed by one to ask a question today. The next question comes from Steven Haywood, from HSBC. Steven, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you. A couple of follow-ups and a couple of questions, if you don't mind. You just highlighted the 4%-5% market investment return. Can you tell us whether that's before or after the annual charges that are taken on funds? And also on the complaints question earlier, can you just repeat what you said about the trend in complaints currently? And then one question on the growth in costs going forwards. It's always been an underlying growth level of around 5% per annum. Is this going to continue at this level, or should we assume a different underlying level before we take into consideration the cost savings?
'Cause I think if you look at the sort of GBP 30 million per annum in 2027, GBP 50 million in 2028, et cetera, that run rate, I think if you assume an underlying 5% growth in costs, then the cost savings in 2027 and beyond keep the total cost base roughly flat. So if you can give us an update on the underlying growth in cost base, that'd be helpful.
Steven, thank you for that. So I think in terms of the market return, that is after the various fees and the like. So that's a net, a net component. Secondly, in terms of complaints, what I'd mentioned was that complaint levels in March were particularly high, unexpectedly, or rather expectedly so, given the announcements-
Mm-hmm
... that we had made at the end of February. So we saw a significant uptick in March, and we have seen in the balance of the second quarter, the level of complaints come down significantly, and they continue to come down during the course of July, effectively so far. So that's a trend that we are seeing. And as for growth in costs, I think you should expect to see underlying kind of overall costs level increasing in line with, by and large, in line with what we've done in the past. I don't think we're expecting anything heroic over and above what we've done in the past.
But it's, I think a discipline and a mindset that we have in terms of cost management, but also our overall focus, as you would have seen, from today's announcements, is our commitment and our focus in terms of doubling the underlying cash position by 2030, and therefore, that will be what we will be focusing on.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Yep.
Next question is from Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Nasib, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, morning. Thanks for taking my question. So firstly, on shareholder returns and cash. You of course, of course, reduced the payout ratio to 50% by 2026. Should we expect it to go back to 70% by 2026? And I'm thinking about the bridging loan facility of GBP 250 million that's maturing in 2026. Presumably, you wanna build up some cash to pay that down, and once that's done, the payout can go up. Is that thinking correct? And then just related to that, how much distributable cash do you have at the moment? I know you've got a liquidity number that you disclosed, but it seems like the actual accessible cash is much lower. So that's question number one. Second question on the Flagstone balance.
I think last time you disclosed it, it was around GBP 4 billion. How has that moved, and what is the thinking around your cash proposition, and when do you think you will have it implemented? And then finally, on the FCA Advice Guidance Boundary Review, what are your thoughts on that? What's your preferred option? I think a lot of the insurers are excited about it, that they can retain a lot more business. And what is the potential impact for your business from that? Thank you.
Okay, Nasib, there are quite a few questions in there. If we've missed any, please come back around and sweep up. We'll try our best to have caught them all. Firstly, in terms of shareholder return and cash, at this stage, we're not making any commitment to what may or may not happen. Effectively, the decision point for the Board will be February 2028, off the back of the 2027 results. So we're not gonna front run what the Board may or may not decide at that stage. But you should plan in for now the ongoing element of the 50% payout. On the loan facility and on the distributable cash?
I think on that loan facility that we disclosed for the year end, we should regard that as being a safety layer that we've introduced. It's a decision we made at that time, and it's still there, as you can see in the accounts. I don't see that as something that influences available cash one way or another, so it's there to serve a very specific purpose. And then the whole point about accessible cash is really dependent on timing, because at any given time, there's a lot of cash emerging within the business, but it doesn't become accessible until you see an intragroup dividend. And because a lot of our income comes from the U.K. Life company, that dividend is paid once a year.
It becomes accessible at the point at which you want it to become accessible, which is immediately prior to the payments of a group dividend.
Thank you. And then in terms of the Flagstone balance, Flagstone balance, has increased to, at the end of June, GBP 4.3 billion. So I think it was GBP 3.9 billion at the full year, so it's GBP 4.3 billion, so it has, it has gone up. As regards to exact timing of when we will have a kind of a cash, type facility, again, that's something that we'll really be focusing on as we get into the Amplify, stage. So we will do preliminary work now, but as soon as there's something meaningful to discuss, I will look to, look to update the, update the market. And then I think, Nasib, your final question was around the advice guidance, boundary.
We continue to work very closely with the FCA and with government, with treasury, on that, the different aspects of that. Let's see where that goes. I'm conscious that government has a lot of issues and a lot of things it needs to grapple with, on its plate, as we heard from the Chancellor yesterday. So we will continue to provide input into that, but it's too early to tell where that's gonna go at the moment, and ultimately, what primary or secondary legislation may be required in order to enact anything that they may ultimately come out with. But we're actively engaged. We need to wait to see where the... You know, what smoke comes out of the chapel in due course. Nasib, thank you for those questions.
Thanks.
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, can I just follow up on one clarification on Craig's response on the cash balance? So I understand the remittance is coming up from the LifeCo, but how much cash do you have in the LifeCo that you could remit up over time as of 1Q 2024? I know the solvency is very strong, but how much is actually distributable out of the LifeCo?
The way you should think about it is that the cash available at the point at which we require it to be available will be equivalent to the amount that we're able to distribute under IFRS, because IFRS, coupled with liquidity, of course, tends to be the main factor within the life company for that. So, you know, the number today isn't really a relevant figure. It's the way we see profits emerging in the life company available for distribution in late February 2025.
Okay, I understand. Thank you.
I'll now hand the call back to Mark Fitzpatrick for some concluding remarks.
Thank you very much, everyone, for your questions and engagement. To conclude from my side, my conviction in SJP is strong, and we have a fantastic opportunity ahead. The business is performing well. It's continuing the resilience of our business model and the value our clients place on the trusted relationship they have with their advisor. We're positioning for further success with a refined purpose and refreshed strategy. We will invest in the business to drive future growth, which will be fully funded by optimizing our cost base. This will help us achieve our ambition to deliver mid- to high single-digit annual growth in funds under management, and doubling the underlying cash result from 2023 to 2030. I look forward to talking to many of you over the coming days. Thank you for engaging, and thank you for your continued support. Goodbye.