Quilter was listed in 2018 after its managed separation from assurance giant Old Mutual.
It was previously known as Old Mutual Wealth, and the core of the business was the Skandia investment platform. It has a range of packaged multimanager products for the affluent and high net worth markets.
Before listing, it acquired Quilter Cheviot, which provides private client services, including directly managed share portfolios. But it also sold the institutional asset manager that Old Mutual established in the 1990s; this unit is now part of Jupiter Asset Management.
It was intended that within a few years Quilter would be delisted from the JSE, as it does no business in South Africa, but South African institutional investors were reluctant to sell — if anything, they were keener to dump their Old Mutual (South Africa) shares. More than 55% of the Quilter share register is South African, the main ones being Coronation Fund Managers and the Public Investment Corp.
It is a unique rand hedge in financial services as it operates entirely in the British retail investment market, except for a small business in Ireland and an offshore trust business based in Jersey.
While the UK economy has been a dismal performer over the past decade, there has been a secular move away from corporate pension to market-linked defined contribution pensions.
Quilter CEO Steven Levin — a South African who was transplanted from Old Mutual head office in Pinelands — says this move happened in the UK a decade later than in South Africa. Quilter’s bread and butter product is income drawdown — what is called a living annuity in South Africa.
The early losses on equity markets after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration have largely been reversed
— Steven Levin
A further growth opportunity, Levin says, is that the new Labour government says there is £420bn of lazy money sitting in cash which it wants to see invested more productively to boost the economy and the London Stock Exchange.
He is confident that under the new chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, the UK government will take a pro-business approach.
He says there are listed competitors in the UK though none exactly mirrors Quilter. AJ Bell is a pure-play investment platform, St James’s Place is a vertically integrated wealth manager that operates through its own agency force, and Rathbones is a wealth manager that recently merged with Investec Wealth UK. Hargreaves Lansdown is a leading investment house but operates on a direct basis and not through intermediaries.
Levin says that, unlike St James’s Place, for example, Quilter operates primarily through independent brokers, sometimes called financial advisers.
Quilter’s revenue is pegged to market levels, but he says that as virtually all the business is advised it is unusual for clients to disinvest in a panic. “The early losses on equity markets after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration have largely been reversed.”
Levin points out that during periods of market turmoil potential clients might choose not to invest until things calm down. Quilter nonetheless had a strong quarter to March 2025, with net flows up 181%. This represents 8% of assets at the beginning of the quarter (opening assets).
The quarterly report says gross inflows in the high net worth sector of £765m were broadly in line with the recent quarterly run rate. It adds that net inflows of £119m (compared with £93m in the three months to March 2025), represented 2% (annualised) of opening assets under management and administration (Auma).
The affluent segment had what Levin describes as another strong quarter, with a 42% year-on-year increase in gross inflows to £4.19bn from £2.956bn in the first quarter of 2024.
This segment saw a 179% increase in net inflows of £2.198bn, representing 10% (annualised) of opening Auma. Levin says Quilter’s sweet spot is not in the ultra high net worth space. Quilter Cheviot runs bespoke portfolios, but it has very little business with Russian oligarchs or South African umbrella fund entrepreneurs who might leave the UK following the expected change to their non-dom (tax exile) status.
Clients in the affluent segment would have investable assets of £300,000-£700,000, with high net worth clients topping off at about £4m.
The investment vehicles are predominantly pooled products such as unit trusts, with negligible exposure to hedge funds, private equity or unlisted equity and debt. But Levin says Quilter isn’t in the mass market either, with very little debit order business, certainly not for small sums such as £10 a month.
Quilter is not overvalued, on an earnings multiple of about 13, considering that it has a robust franchise and hard currency earnings.
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