Hargreaves Lansdown

Hargreaves Lansdown shares dropped as much as 4% after co-founder and majority stakeholder Peter Hargreaves stepped down from the company's board with immediate effect.

Mark Dampier, head of research at Hargreaves Lansdown, has sold nearly £900,000 worth of shares in the company after exercising share options.

Hargreaves Lansdown is extending is multi-manager range with the launch of an Asia and emerging markets vehicle at the end of this month.

Chancellor George Osborne will further relax pension rules in his Budget on Wednesday to allow the sale of annuity contracts.

ETFs turn 25 years old

Platform inflows reached record highs in the fourth quarter of 2014 as upcoming pension freedoms and demand for income boosted inflows, according to Fundscape.

Wealth managers are urging fund providers to open preferentially-priced share classes to their businesses, as opposed to just the largest, typically platform-based distributors.

Hargreaves Lansdown has unveiled a low-cost drawdown plan, charging no set-up or income withdrawal fees, ahead of the 6 April pensions reforms.

Hargreaves Lansdown is planning a push into the asset management arena which could see it hire external fund teams and market its services to advisory businesses in future.

After several years of strong growth, Hargreaves Lansdown has reported a drop in pre-tax profits for the last six months of 2014 as the impact of clean pricing offset a further rise in assets.