Liberum awards Quilter and HL 'buy' ratings and marks AJ Bell a 'sell'

In their inaugural piece of research on investment platforms, analysts at Liberum have identified Quilter and Hargreaves Lansdown as the best buy opportunities, while AJ Bell received a sell rating from the team.

The analysts predict high structural growth in the sector to continue, expecting the multiple headwinds for the sector in the UK to be a "multi-decade trend". "Increasing private wealth, an ageing population and an increased need to start saving early in working lives should support growth across the wealth management and investment platform sector," Liberum said. However, the firm sees pricing pressures for adviser platforms, which is a much more competitive space than D2C and is not dominated by one provider. The greatest risks face the sub-scale adviser platforms, which are at risk...