PensionBee assets top £3bn as post-IPO growth continues – but pension app still hasn’t hit profitability
- PensionBee was looking after around £1.65bn in assets when it first listed last year
- The company was founded by friends Romi Savova and Jonathan Lister Parsons
- People can use the service to consolidate their retirement plans into one pot
PensionBee Group’s assets under administration have passed the £3bn mark, almost double the amount managed by the company when it listed last year.
The online retirement provider said the milestone was achieved through a combination of steady net inflows and high levels of customer retention, amid growing economic unpredictability.
When the financial services group’s shares began trading on the London Stock Exchange in April 2021 at 165p each, worth £365million, it was dealing with around £1.65billion of assets.
Feat: PensionBee said the milestone was achieved through a combination of steady net inflows and high levels of customer retention amid growing economic volatility.
Proceeds from PensionBee’s IPO, which raised £55m, have been used to fund its expansion, including through marketing spend and improving its technology platform.
In a trading update published last month, the London-based firm revealed that the invested value of its pension assets had increased by just under a quarter to £2.8bn over the course of the year ending in September.
This is because the number of active customers jumped 70% to 265,000, many of whom are elderly with above-average pensions, and customer retention rates remain high at 97. %.
Romi Savova, the group’s co-founder and chief executive, said the achievement “results from our commitment to providing exceptional customer service and helping more people prepare for a happy retirement.”
She added: “We are growing the business in line with our ambitions while helping to meet the country’s growing need for long-term retirement planning and preparation.”
Savova, 36, born in Bulgaria, launched the retirement savings app in 2015 with friend Jonathan Lister Parsons after struggling to transfer her work pension to a new provider.
PensionBee allows people to consolidate their various pension plans into one pot, which is then managed by large financial services companies like BlackRock, HSBC and Legal & General.
Customers with pension plans containing up to £100,000 pay an annual fee of between 0.5 and 0.95% to PensionBee, with anything above this resulting in a lower percentage fee payment.
Despite healthy customer and asset growth since its IPO, the group’s recent nine-month results showed adjusted underlying losses increased by more than half to £18m.
It expects to achieve “pre-market profitability” this year before achieving positive underlying earnings by the end of 2023.
PensionBee Group shares rose 1.05% to 58p in early Monday afternoon, although their value has more than halved in the past six months.
