AJ Bell has a bright future – how to play its shares
Investment platform AJ Bell (LSE: AJB) will benefit from people investing more for their retirement. Good news, then, that politicians aim to persuade people in the UK to do just that, increasing the amount of money they put into shares and so helping make sure that they can accumulate enough savings to fund a comfortable retirement.
AJ Bell offers financial products to consumers who want to manage their own investments by putting money into ISAs and SIPPs, and to those who are investing via financial advisors. At present, AJ Bell’s assets under management (AUM) are split evenly between the two segments, though its direct-to-consumer segment has been growing at a faster rate.
Should you invest in AJ Bell?
AJ Bell has a strong brand: it boasts high customer satisfaction scores in addition to customer retention rates of around 93.5% for advised customers and 95% for those who directly invest with the platform. The average customer sticks with AJ Bell for 17 years. This has helped it grow to the point where it is now the third-largest investment platform, with a market share of 8.3% in terms of assets under management. However, it is capturing around 16.1% of the inflows into investment platforms, which suggests that its overall market share will continue to increase.
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Of course, as with any service business, there is always the risk of disruption, either by a new entrant or from AI. But its solid reputation and regulatory barriers both help fend off rivals, while the company is also using AI to reduce its administrative costs and make its platforms even more efficient. The long-term problems caused by ageing should also reduce any political risk.
Overall, AJ Bell has seen its AUM more than double between 2018 and 2026. Sales have increased even more quickly, soaring 150% between 2020 and 2025, and are expected to keep on growing at a double-digit pace. AJ Bell’s asset-light business model gives it a very high return on capital employed, enabling it to increase its dividend consistently and return money to shareholders via buybacks even as it continues to expand. Despite this, the stock trades at a more than reasonable 19 times expected 2027 earnings, with a dividend yield of 2.8%.
These strong fundamentals, in addition to unexpectedly good recent quarterly results, have been received positively, with AJ Bell’s share price beating the wider market by 25% over the past six months. The shares are also well ahead of both their 50-day and 200-day moving averages. I would therefore suggest that you go long at the current price of 597p at £5 per 1p. I would put the stop-loss at 400p, which gives you a total downside of £985.
This article was first published in MoneyWeek’s magazine. Enjoy exclusive early access to news, opinion and analysis from our team of financial experts with a MoneyWeek subscription.