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PRIVACY
Professional Services

Hargreaves Lansdown gains nearly 100,000 customers after investors swoop in on cheap shares

The finance firm's investors have pumped an extra £4bn into the company

(Image: Bristol Post)

Thousands of new investors bought up shares with financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown as the stock market plunged in March.

The investment company gained around 94,000 new clients in the four months to the end of April, it revealed on Thursday (May 14).

The new customers, and old ones, funnelled an extra £4billion into the company during the period - up from £2.9billion in the same months the year before - Hargreaves said.

Markets suffered hugely in March as the threat of coronavirus loomed. Even though the virus had not yet had a major impact on the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ at that point, more than half a trillion pounds was wiped off the value of the FTSE 100 in just a few weeks.

As prices fell and interest rates were slashed for savings accounts, investors saw a chance to mop up cheap shares.

Steve Lansdown is the co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown(Image: Getty Images)

"Existing clients added money to their accounts and new clients joined Hargreaves Lansdown to take advantage of the opportunity to invest at lower prices," the company said in a statement.

In the same four-month period last year, the company only added 53,000 new customers. It now has almost 1.4 million.

Hargreaves was also helped by an advertising campaign focused on London and the South East of England. So far this financial year, it has added 144,000 new customers.