Good morning, everyone. Hopefully you've had an opportunity to digest our results and watch the results presentation. I'm here this morning with the whole of the executive team, to take questions. Alex, if we could have the first question, please.
Thank you. Our first question for today comes from Andrew Sinclair of Bank of America. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Three from me, please. Firstly is on the academy. really liked the update on graduate productivity today. Just thinking about how many more to come. I think you said there's over 350 in the academy at year-end, but it was already 358 at the end of June. Do you still think you'll get that to around 400 in 2023? Looking back, I think this number was over 450 pre-COVID. How quickly can you ramp that back up to those sorts of levels? Secondly was on the partner loans portfolio. I saw you sold two hundred and sixty-two and a half million of partner loans. What drove that?
Can you just tell us a little bit more about terms and what it means for cash? Thirdly, on new business, sorry to ask a short-term sort of question, but just on the guidance that you reiterated the January messaging. I mean, in January you were saying if economic indicators continue at a sustained recovery, it should lead to improved activity. Those activity and those indicators probably have generally been pretty positive since January. Has that actually led through to improving flows yet, or is it still just expectations of potential flows to come? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andrew. I'll take the flows outlook first, and then Craig, perhaps you can do the loans, and I'll go to Peter on the academy. I think firstly it's difficult to extrapolate January and February because they're always the quieter months of the year. If you look at the first quarter, March in itself is always at least 40% of the first quarter numbers. We got a budget on the 15th of March. Of course we've got the all important tax year end. It's also worth remembering if you're looking at comparisons to last year, is that January and February last year were the months pre the invasion of Ukraine. The first quarter last year was the highest quarter of the year.
As you said, Andrew, it's encouraging to see those economic indicators recovering. It looks as if inflation has peaked in the U.K. and probably most developed economies. That could mean we're sort of towards the top of the interest rate cycle, and markets are performing well at the beginning of the year. As that continues, consumer confidence will increase. Indeed, last week we saw that U.K. consumer confidence has hit its highest level since April 2022. All that will feed into flows. March is the critical month for the first quarter. Craig, perhaps do the partner loans.
Yeah. Hi, Andy. The loans that were sold sat broadly within the securitization vehicle that we set up a number of years ago. You might remember at that point, we, the accounting rules for that type of securitization were such that we didn't pass any derecognition tests, so we kept them within the consolidated balance sheet, but we showed them as non-recourse. Essentially what's happened is that those loans sitting within the securitization have been sold out of the securitization vehicle into a third party, which means that they are both non-recourse and off balance sheets now. The impact of that transaction was fairly minimal on cash.
Where, where we did see a positive, if you like, for cash, was that we were a junior note holder in the securitization, simply as part of the structure. That, that came back to us. You also asked about terms. The, the terms for the, for the partners with those loans are unchanged. If, if you are in receipt of one of those loans that happen to be in the securitization and has moved, other than seeing a, a paper exercise, there's no change. It's, it's just really another point on our whole journey of finding different ways of future funding.
Okay. Thank you, Craig. On the academy, if I just say one thing and then hand over to Pete. Obviously the number of people in the academy, at any point in time, some people graduate and more people join the academy, so it's obviously not the same number each reporting period. Pete, would you like to pick up that?
Yeah, no. Excuse me. Thank you, Andrew. The Andrew's point is exactly right. The number of people moving through the academy at any one time is a flexible number based on the graduation of individuals. The way we've enhanced the academy post-COVID is that we don't have four location centers anymore. People train through our 21 regional offices and indeed in partner practices. The vast majority of that training is done at the pace that suits the individual. Therefore, the graduations will come across the whole year rather than at specific points in time.
In terms of our confidence to return the numbers to where they were, yeah, we are very confident that the academy will continue to grow to the needs that we establish for the growth within the partnership. Absolutely no concerns whatsoever about the growth of the academy or indeed the graduations from the academy, which as I've said previously, are, a point that the individual is ready rather than a set period in time.
Great stuff. Thank you very much.
Thank you. If we go to the second, set of questions, please, Alex.
Thank you. Our next question comes from David McCann of Numis. David, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Three for me as well, actually. Thank you. First of all, can you provide some specifics of any changes you are making or need to make ahead of the Consumer Duty coming in later this year? That's the first one. Secondly, given the strength of the balance sheet and noting that you're sort of returning around 30% cash profits in the inverse of the 70% payout ratio, and arguably with the share price being below fair value, why has St. James's , to date, not had a formal share buyback program? Is this something the board might consider or reconsider in the future? Finally, given the rise in interest rates seen over, you know, recent periods, I mean, how much stress is this putting on the partner loan service cost for those partners?
Indeed, perhaps the appetite for newer partners to actually want to take out new loans to finance more business purchases, especially if valuations have remained basically unchanged for those businesses. That'd be great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, David. I'll take the Consumer Duty question, and then Craig perhaps pass over to you on the partner loan point and share buybacks. Look, the Consumer Duty is a big project for the whole industry, obviously us included. We have a plan to be ready, and we're on track with that plan. I would expect all businesses will need to make changes. Indeed, it's what the FCA expects. I'm not gonna go into detail, David, but if I just give you sort of one example to put some flavor on it. We clearly believe that we provide good client outcomes, and we evidence those client outcomes. Consumer Duty will require us to provide even greater evidence that we're providing good client outcomes.
We will be able to use Blue door, and Salesforce, to help us, you know, with any gaps that we identify. That gives you just one particular flavor. I might just ask, Mark Sutton, our CRO, if he just wants to add anything on Consumer Duty. Mark?
Thanks, Andrew, and thanks for the question, David. I think as Andrew said, our implementation's progressing as planned. We are very mindful of recent industry communications from the FCA, including sort of recent Dear CEO letters and speeches from Therese Chambers and Sheldon Mills, which have been helpful in terms of highlighting some of the areas that they expect firms to focus on. As you can imagine, we are looking at those carefully. As Andrew said, you know, it's clear from the FCA that they are expecting to see some changes across the industry. There are some areas we are looking at.
An example of that would be around our direct client engagement and making sure that we have the evidence that Andrew referred to shows that we outcomes and our clients understand the implications they've seen for their statement.
Thanks, Mark. Then Craig, do you want to pick up the partner loan one and make sure share buyback as well?
Yeah, I'll do the share buyback first. Hi, David. When we formulated the 2025 plan, one of the components of that plan was both the method distribution to shareholders and the pattern and quantum. When we considered all of the alternatives, which is what you do when you're horizon planning, we thought of it in terms of the stock of distributable profit that we had, the likely rhythm of newly emerging distributable profits, and have in mind that the profit emerges in some cases in regulated manufacturing companies, liquidity within those companies and free liquidity, within unregulated companies. The level of distribution and also the style of distribution in terms of is it growth or is it pegged somehow to cash emergence and results.
One of the things that we were very, very keen to have was a sustainable approach. Something that shareholders would understand and be able to, if you like, calculate for themselves based on market conditions and other factors. What that left us with was, if we're gonna distribute 70%, 30% to use for ongoing investments in the business, but also importantly, to grow the capacity of some of the regulated companies that have capital profiles that are consistent with scale. It's quite a long answer. What I think my general point would be once you set that and you're distributing up at 70%, you're not leaving an awful lot of space for share buybacks in a meaningful way.
If we were to contemplate that, something else would likely have to give. What I've just described is the approach that we laid out a couple of years ago for the 2025 plan. I'm not gonna prejudge what a 2030 plan looks like. But they're the things you have to balance. We do get odd questions, the odd question on share buybacks. I would say, and some of my preview incorrect here, I think many of our shareholders are quite keen on the idea of about continuing consistent and sort of easy to calculate dividend. That's the share buyback point. The point on partner lending. I mean, rates obviously have an impact on anyone taking out a loan, and therefore anyone providing a loan.
The data that I think I would point you to, and apologies for the 80-page plus tome that went this morning, on page 32 of our release, we put some disclosures in which we do annually around loans to value ratios, and it'll give some indication of the level of security that these loans. It's important to remember that this security is not in the form of a fixed asset. Security itself is revenue earning, it's income generating, and it's that income that we use in order to affect the repayments due to us. By the same token, what it's telling you is that there is income outside of the income that flows to us, that flows into the business that's taken out the loan.
You know, these are, these are businesses taking out commercial loan arrangements with another business. Is anyone holding a loan happy that interest rates have gone up? Yeah, probably not, although it would depend on their other circumstances. I think many people holding these loans, and many businesses holding these loans, will view today's interest rates as something actually that I think is more normal than the sort of rates they've seen in the past. The idea that where we are at the, on the interest rate curve is making this in some way a less compelling proposition is not one we would agree with at all.
Thank you, Craig. Alex, could we go to the next set of questions, please?
Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Baker of Citi. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions. Three from me as well, please. First, just on the controllable cost guidance, the 8%. Can you just give a little bit more granularity on where the increases are coming year-on-year versus 2022, then also how you plan on bringing it back down to 5% going forward? Then just circling back on the Consumer Duty, should we be penciling in any implementation costs for this in 2023, or does this run through the controllable cost base? Then finally, on the 70% payout ratio that you just mentioned, obviously 2023, you're gonna have a larger part of your underlying cash result driven by shareholder interest, which could reverse over time just given where interest rates are and where they go.
Does that have any impact on the way you view that 70% going forward? In the event that you were to see a decline in underlying cash results at any point, is there still a consideration of having a growing dividend, or is it purely just that payout ratio approach? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Andrew. I'll just take the Consumer Duty one and then hand over to Craig on the controllable costs and the payout ratio. Just on the Consumer Duty, all costs that we expect for getting ready for Consumer Duty this year are included in our 8% growth in controllable expenses. On that subject of 8% controllable expenses, Craig.
Yes, hi. The... Obviously, inflation impacts on many cost lines. I made the point this time last year that in many regards, we'd contracted ahead, which is quite normal in a business like ours, and therefore, you know, even things like some of our energy costs were contracted some way ahead. All of these things face inflation catching up with them. There's a general picture of inflation becoming a factor in some of the contracts that we're renewing. I think the key one I'd put forward is around half of our controllable overheads relate to staff costs. One of the key drivers within that 8% is the annual pay review that we've been going through over the last couple of months.
In terms of how we would see that coming back, if I take an optimistic view, and I take the view that inflation will come under control and go down to the extent some people think it could during the course of perhaps the second half, it may well be that we find ourselves in a very different inflationary environment for 2024. If that's the case, we will take all steps to get back on plan. It's worth me just putting some context behind this. When we put the 2025 plan forward, inflation was running at a level below 2%, and we were going for 5%, which gave us real growth in our cost base of about 3%. Right here, right now, inflation's at sort of roughly 10%, 11%.
We're putting forward eight, which is actually eating in by three. There's a 6%... 5%, 6% delta there on what it is we've done to control costs in a challenging period. I think that kind of approach will roll into any future approaches, which is that we're acutely conscious of the importance of controlling the controllables, if you like. The second question you asked was quite broad, and apologies if I've misunderstood it. I don't see the emergence of income from shareholder interest changing the dividend pattern in any way because, of course, it's baked into a cash result that delivers an underlying cash result on which the dividend is based. To the extent it emerges as a benefit, so too does the dividend grow.
You're right, rates go up and rates go down. I think the way I've described it at the moment is that we've always carefully managed our working capital within our life companies. It just so happens that we're now being rewarded for that because base rates are up from where they've been over the last few years. You're also right in as much as when rates go up, they can go down. What I would say, though, and perhaps I'm being optimistic here, is that when rates go down, it means things have settled. It means inflation is under control, and it could well be one of those drivers of longer-term confidence that Andrew was talking around at the moment. You know, things will go up and things will go down that are market related in our cash results.
I see this as quite a helpful tailwind in a year where, you know, the rate of corporation tax is going up and there are various other things that perhaps go in the other direction. It's a good benefit for this year, at least.
Thank you. Alex, can we go on to the next question, please?
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Bathurst from RBC. Ben, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've also got three, if I may. Starting on the new business margin within the cash result. Just to clarify, is the message for that line for 2023 that we should expect the margin on inflows in basis point terms to move up even if gross flows, say, remain flat year-on-year, just given presumably that there's gonna be lower 2022 allowances flowing through? Could that mean that the level in basis point turn returns to maybe the 2021 level? Secondly, on client cash. What are your clients earning on the GBP 5.7 billion of investments they have in cash? Has there been anything you've been able to do to boost those returns with rates being higher?
Finally, on sjp.asia and the DFM business, just maybe starting to think beyond 2024 and 2025 once they reach cash breakeven. Should we be expecting these businesses to post incremental annual growth and profits, or do you think they might hang around the breakeven mark for a few years past that point? Thank you.
Okay. Yeah, thank you, Ben. I'll pass the new business to Craig in a moment, and perhaps you can pick up DFM, and then Iain Rayner can pick up the Asia question. Just on the client cash, I'll do that one as it's really, really important to remember here that this is we are different to, say, a platform. The cash that you're seeing is cash held within the funds. Yeah? It's the working capital within the funds, the asset allocation that the individual fund managers made. This is not cash sitting in a client bank account where we're taking a sort of net interest margin or anything. Hopefully that explains it.
Sure. Yeah. Thank you.
Craig, do you want to pick up the new business, new business margin?
Yeah. I think if I've understood your question correctly, if inflows for 2023 are flat compared to 2022, I think the general message is so too will be that margin. The reason for that is that you end up with a year where allowances are set looking very similar to the year in which new business is written. Where we find variation is where you get a year like 2022, where we had extraordinary poor performance in 2021, which drove higher business allowances, followed by a year where gross inflows were lower. Put simply, if 2023 gross inflows go up, the margin will improve. If they stay flat, it will stay broadly flat. If they go down, the margin will reduce.
There are other things that make this an imperfect linear margin, but what I've said hopefully gives you a good feel for what you might expect.
Okay. And then DFM cash positive by 2024, and then we would expect it to continue to grow its cash result?
Yes, I would expect it to grow as cash result. You know, the breakeven target is a point in time. At that point in time, the DFM will have completed the back office restructuring, and the DFM business will begin to see the benefit of the investment that's been made over the last few years.
Look, a similar thing on, on Asia. Cash positive by 2025. Thereafter, we'd expect it to, you know, to start earning incremental returns. Iain, do you want to add anything to that?
Yeah. That's exactly right. We're still very confident about the cash break-even by the end of 2025 target. Yes, exactly as you said, we expect that curve to trend upwards from that point.
Yeah. Look, we have a good little business in Asia, a very exciting part of the world for growth going forward. Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. Alex, could we go for the next three questions, please?
Thank you. Our next question comes from Rhea Shah of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I have three questions as well. Just going back to this marginal new business. I mean, how variable are the partner expenses and allowances within this? The second question, going back to advisors. Away from the academy, what are your expectations for growth in the experienced advisor cohort? The third question is around flows. A bit more long term than maybe, Andy's very, very short-term question. For the entirety of 2023, are you comfortable with consensus growth of 4% in gross inflows?
Okay. Thank you, Rhea. I'll obviously come to the new business margin back to Craig here and go to Pete on the academy. Look, I think on flows, as you say, the consensus is 4% or 5% for 2023. I think if we weren't comfortable with that number, we would have been saying something this morning. Yeah. Craig, do you wanna just pick up on the new business?
Yeah, I'll pick up on new business margins.
Yeah.
The new business margin. It's worth me just picking up on that last point. What we are very likely to see though is quite a bit of variation in comparatives in the current year.
Yeah.
It's worth having that in mind. The first quarter of last year was our second highest ever quarter. For reasons everyone will understand, the whole operating environments in the markets turned quite markedly in Q2. Q3 and Q4 are in recent memory. For that reason, we're gonna see some pretty tough comparatives in the first quarter. Obviously the picture changes as the year progresses, and it is important to remember that shape. On the margin on new business, it's not so much variability between partners. I would really think of it in terms of volume. It's business volume related. Where you see a nonlinear pattern within the margin, it's simply because you get some years where volumes are very high and other years where they are less high.
But the cost element that goes into the margin is a year out of sync, and that's what really drives that variability.
Thank you, Craig. Pete, so the experienced advisor marketplace.
Yeah. Thank you, Rhea. The recruitment of experienced advisors has always been a cornerstone of the growth of partnership at St. James's Place. Historically, we have selected people to join the partnership based on a number of criteria. One of the things to remember about people joining the partnership who are currently active in face-to-face advising in the U.K. is that they come with legacy. The quality bar has always been quite high to gain acceptance to be offered the membership of the partnership. I think this will remain strong moving forward. I think the important decision we made some years ago to introduce the academy and grow it over a period of time has allowed us to balance not to have to make decisions that we wouldn't automatically want to with new joiners to the partnership.
I have absolute confidence that we will continue to attract the right number of the right people who've got the desire, ambition, and importantly, the time in front of them to grow a sustainable business at St. James's Place. Just one important factor here is established recruits tend to be in excess of a decade older than graduates from the academy, and that balance is something we factor into our manpower growth to give us the longevity of production and productivity growth over the extended period.
Okay. Thanks, Pete. Alex, could we go to the next set of questions, please?
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next questions come from Nasib Ahmed from UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one on IFRS profit and the payout ratio, and appreciate your previous answer to this, Craig. When I look at the results today, the IFRS post-tax result is pretty close to the underlying cash result of full year 2022, and the gap has improved significantly since you set the target, the payout ratio target of 70%. Keeping this in mind and the fact that you only have two to three years of pre-RDR business left, when can we expect an increase in the payout ratio? Do we just kind of anchor onto the two to three years of pre-RDR business guidance in the pack? Second question on kind of Asia. What flows are you seeing between the geographies? Has there been a move away from Hong Kong towards Singapore?
Related to that, which part of the Asian business has performed better than others in 2022? Finally on your mature FUM margin guidance of 59 - 61 basis points for 2023, is that expected to be lower in 2024 given the tax rate impact would be bigger in that year? Thanks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Two financial questions for Craig here, and then I'll ask Iain Rayner again to talk about the Asia flow. Perhaps Craig, over to you for the IFRS and mature fund.
Thank you. The IFRS profit, you're absolutely right. It does bear far more resemblance this year to the cash results than certainly it has done in some years in the past. There are a few drivers for that, not least because you'll have seen in this year's cash result that we haven't posted anything below the line. The underlying cash is equal to the total cash result. Therefore, the amount on which the dividend is based is probably one step closer towards IFRS. I wouldn't underestimate other adjustments that happen within IFRS that actually don't really reflect shareholder interests other than the fact that they create timing differences. The one to watch out for is the tax asymmetry.
The way I think I would encourage you to think about it is if you're looking at the IFRS results and you have a good feel for the impact that deferring a lot of income and amortizing a lot of the deferred expenses is going to have on the bottom line there, it'll give you a pattern of development that is consistent with the cash result because fundamentally they're driven by business activity. What we did when we set the 70% payout ratio is that we took account of any variability between, if you like, the emergence of distributable profits and the emergence of cash.
Plotted a course using 70% that enabled us to continue investing in the business and keeping that capital growing where it needs to grow. I don't think you're seeing anything in IFRS that all of a sudden opens a window into distributable profits that you won't see emerging within the cash result. I think in short, what I'm saying is that there will certainly be variability between those two, but that they will broadly correlate in the same direction.
Okay. Thank you. Iain, difference between Hong Kong and Singapore last year?
Yeah. Yeah, it's been, it's been very interesting. There's no doubt that the major factor has been COVID, and that's both been the lockdown, but also the differing timings of opening up of COVID in both those geographies. Obviously, Singapore opened up fairly early in 2022, and Hong Kong was much later. Had an impact because as these places opened up, clients and partners who've been in those geographies probably for two years in many cases often went abroad to see friends and families for a period of time. That, that had an impact. In terms of Hong Kong to Singapore, there's been some evidence of clients and business flows migrating that way, but I wouldn't say that's material. Hong Kong stayed remarkably robust.
We're beginning to see migration back into Hong Kong from a client and advisor point of view. I think broadly going forward we'd see them as fairly equal, so in terms of advisors flows and future opportunities.
Okay. Thank you, Iain. Craig was trying to get away without answering the mature funds under management, but I'm not gonna let him on your behalf. Craig?
It's an easy one. If you look at the guidance summary that we've put forward for 2023 and then roll into 2024, where you get the whole year effect of the tax changes, you need to take 1 basis point off each end of that margin range, which would make it 58 - 60.
Okay. Thank you, Craig. Alex, could we go to the next question, please?
Thank you. Our next question comes from Ashik Musaddi from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Andrew. Good morning, Craig. Just a couple of questions I have. One is, I mean, if I think about your, you reiterating your 2025 guidance. Thanks a lot for that, just want to get a bit more sense as to how you're thinking about the GBP 200 billion of AUM. Clearly year-over-year, your total AUM is down. Flows outlook is a bit different compared to what the outlook you would have had when you had given that guidance or say at least ambition of GBP 200 billion. What are the moving parts on that? I mean, would you say that there was, say, some headroom in that guidance which makes it more, more reasonable now to get it?
would you say that, okay, there is some, would be interesting to get some color on what are the moving parts, why you are still comfortable about that GBP 200 billion o f AUM. Second question is, now clearly interest rates have gone higher, are you seeing any change in the asset allocation by the investment managers that you have, or is more or less asset allocation for the customers are still more or less same? Thank you.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Ashik. I'll take guidance, 2025 guidance plan, strategy and hand over from Bill on the investment question. Two years ago we set down four financial targets. One was gross flows. The other was maintaining retention. The third one was controllable expenses. The fourth one, with a small modicum of market growth, the math takes you to GBP 200 billion. Two years into that plan, it's we're in a good place in terms of flows. Our ahead of where we would expect it to be. Retention is ahead of where we have expected to be. Controllable expenses are on target, and funds under management are perhaps a little bit behind target because the markets.
Look, I think we all know, don't we, that markets can take and markets can give. The increase in the market so far this year has already contributed a reasonable amount to the stock of funds under management. I think we always said this was never gonna be linear. I think being where we are two years in, we're really pleased, and I'd much prefer to be there than behind type situation. It won't be linear. This year could be difficult on flows. You know, it, as we said, investor sentiment is improving, but it doesn't mean that 2024 and 2025 wouldn't be good years. It's not gonna be a straight line, Ashik, and we remain confident of those targets.
Craig, do you want to add anything to that one?
Nope.
No? Okay. Cool. In terms of the asset allocation, I'll hand you over to Tom. Now, some of you may not have met Tom. Tom assumed the role as investment director in September. Yes? Yes, I got that right. That's good news. I'll hand over to Tom.
Thanks, Andrew. Good morning, everyone. In terms of asset allocation, it's been relatively stable. Our positioning remains that we're ever so slightly underweight, equities relative to the traditional bond and equity index. We have a slight skew to value over growth, which we adopted, early on last year, which has benefited performance. We've got a slight increased allocation in credit as yields have been rising. We're slightly overweight credit, underweight sovereigns and duration. In terms of the shape of the asset allocation, it's broadly stable compared to what you would have seen previously.
Okay. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Ashik.
Thank you.
Alex, next batch of questions, please.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Larissa, your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Two questions on customer demand. Actually, the first local, the other one in Asia. In the U.K., have you seen any changes in the products that customers are seeking out that may impact the margin? Then in Asia, there's been some talk of high-net-worth individuals, specifically from China, but from the broader region, migrating to Hong Kong and Singapore, and the two cities having a race to secure those funds. Are you seeing that trend? Are you seeing the same trend in both markets? Or are you noticing differences between the two, please?
Okay, thank you. I'll ask Iain Rayner on the, on the second question. Look, I think on consumer demand, you know, at a sort of global level, I... we're not seeing anything that would change guidance anywhere. There will be an awful lot of conversations with clients at the moment around inflation, and what inflation is doing to people's savings. No, no need to change any guidance on the numbers. Iain, on the Asia question and the high-net-worth Chinese investors.
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. Are we seeing that trend? Yes. Is there a certain amount of competitiveness between Hong Kong and Singapore? Yes. Anyone who spends any time in that part of the world will know that's true. I wouldn't say that one materially is outperforming the other on that trend. Is it a big focus for us as a business, the kind of high-net worth family office Chinese? No, it's not. It's not really where we're focused at the moment. It's not something that we're spending a lot of time on, but we do see the trend.
Okay. Hopefully that answers your question. Alex, I believe there's one more question.
We have a follow-up question from Andrew Sinclair of Bank of America. Andrew, your line is now open. Please go ahead. Sorry, Andrew, we're not receiving any audio. You might be on mute.
Apologies. That's my idiocy. Firstly, on the GBP 40 million-GBP 50 million of interest on cash, is that fully phased for 2023? Or is there still some more to come, if the rates stay at current levels in 2024? Finally just o n net advisor recruitment. We've got the academy graduates figure. Just wondering if you could give us the other numbers of experienced hires and departures for the last year. Thank you very much.
I'll probably answer the second one on behalf of Pete. Look, we're not gonna get into granular numbers here, Andrew, I'm afraid so. No, I guess is the answer to that one. On the phasing of the interest margin, Craig again.
This is on the shareholder return line. It's worth me emphasizing something Andrew mentioned earlier. This is cash that is already in working capital. Shareholder working capital, the balances are always there but haven't earned a margin in the past. The shape of the balances that we hold are broadly consistent, but they do have a degree of volatility, which is what you expect in life company working capital, where we use the cash to settle liabilities. The guidance of 40-50 is making an assumption that the base rate stays where it is today for the remainder of the year. It'll be the case for as long as that goes on.
If theoretically, putting aside any rounding, base rates stay the same for the following year, unless we have something unforeseen that means that those cash balances reduce, and I can't think of anything offhand, I would expect that to be a consistent income. Hopefully that addresses the question, Andy.
Yeah. That's all great.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Alex, any final questions, or are we finished?
We currently have no further registered questions.
Okay. I think that probably just leaves me to thank you all for your time and questions this morning. I look forward to catching up soon. Thank you to the executive team, and thank you to Alex. Have a good rest of the day.