AJ Bell Share Price Falls Despite Record 2025 Results and £50m Buyback

LONDON, 4 December 2025 – AJ Bell plc (LON: AJB), one of the UK’s largest investment platforms, has reported record full‑year results, announced a fresh £50m share buyback for 2026 and hiked its dividend. Yet the AJ Bell share price is trading sharply lower today as the market digests cautious profit‑margin guidance and the impact of UK ISA reforms on costs. ^[1]

Below is a deep dive into today’s AJ Bell news, the latest analyst forecasts, and how sentiment around the stock is shifting.

AJ Bell share price on 4 December 2025

By late morning on 4 December 2025, AJ Bell shares were trading around 490–492p, down roughly 6–7% on the day. Real‑time quotes from Hargreaves Lansdown and Investing.com show a price near 491p, versus a previous close of 524.5p, implying a one‑day fall of about 6.3%–6.4%. ^[2]

Earlier in the session, Alliance News reported the stock down 6.3% at 491.59p, while City A.M. cited an early drop of around 6.6% to 489.40p as investors reacted to the outlook. ^[3]

Key valuation markers at today’s levels include:

Market cap: about £2.0bn ^[4]
Trailing P/E ratio: roughly 25–26x earnings ^[5]
Dividend yield: about 2.5% based on the new full‑year dividend ^[6]
52‑week range: approximately 358.8p to 578.5p ^[7]

So despite today’s sell‑off, AJ Bell shares remain well above their 12‑month low and comfortably within the upper half of their trading range.

Record 2025 results: double‑digit growth across the board

For the year ended 30 September 2025, AJ Bell delivered what can fairly be described as a blockbuster set of numbers:

Revenue: up 18% to £317.8m (FY24: £269.4m) ^[8]
Profit before tax (PBT): up 22% to £137.8m (FY24: £113.3m) ^[9]
PBT margin: improved from 42.0% to 43.4% ^[10]
Diluted EPS: up 26% to 25.56p (FY24: 20.34p) ^[11]
Total ordinary dividend: up 14% to 14.25p per share (FY24: 12.50p) ^[12]

Investing.com notes that revenue modestly beat consensus estimates of £315.7m, while EPS of 25.6p was ahead of the 25.1p expected by analysts, underscoring that this was at least a small beat on most key lines. ^[13]

Despite that, the market reaction has been negative – which tells you the story is not about the historic numbers, but about what happens next.

Customer and asset growth: direct‑to‑consumer engine still roaring

The operational picture behind those results is striking:

Retail customers: up 18% to 657,000 (from 557,000)
Platform customers: up 19% to 644,000 (from 542,000)
Non‑platform customers: slipped slightly to 13,000 ^[14]

City A.M. highlights that AJ Bell added over 100,000 new platform customers in the year, describing the performance as a record and pointing to the firm’s “fresh, playful” ad campaigns resonating with younger, digitally‑savvy investors. ^[15]

On the asset side:

Total assets under administration (AUA): up 17% to £108.2bn (from £92.2bn)
Platform AUA: up 19% to £103.3bn (from £86.5bn)
Assets under management (AUM): up 31% to £8.9bn (from £6.8bn) ^[16]

The full year‑end trading update shows: ^[17]

Total net inflows:£7.5bn to the platform and £6.2bn overall
Robust contributions from both advised and direct‑to‑consumer (D2C) channels
A customer retention rate of 94.1%, broadly unchanged from last year

In other words, AJ Bell continues to capture a bigger slice of the UK retail savings and investment market, with D2C growth particularly strong.

Dividends and capital returns: 21st year of growth and a new £50m buyback

Shareholder returns are another major theme in today’s news.

Alongside the 14% uplift in the total ordinary dividend to 14.25p per share, AJ Bell’s board has: ^[18]

Proposed a final dividend of 9.75p per share
Noted this marks the 21st consecutive year of dividend growth
Announced a new share buyback programme of up to £50m for FY26

City A.M. reports that this dividend growth returned about £44.6m to shareholders for the year, while Investment Week emphasises that the £50m buyback follows “strong growth across customer numbers and overall revenue” and comes with pointed criticism of the government’s ISA policy (more on that shortly). ^[19]

Investing.com also notes that this fresh £50m buyback is being layered on top of previous repurchase schemes, reflecting management’s confidence in the cash generation of the business. ^[20]

So why is the AJ Bell share price down? Margin guidance and ISA reforms

If the backward‑looking numbers are strong, the forward‑looking commentary explains the market’s discomfort.

Margin guidance for FY26

In today’s coverage, Investing.com reports that AJ Bell plans an extra £15m of business investment next year, with management guiding fiscal 2026 PBT margins down to 39–40%, versus around 43.4% delivered in FY25 and roughly 43% previously expected by RBC. ^[21]

RBC’s analysts describe the new guidance as implying mid‑single‑digit PBT downgrades, even after an upgraded revenue‑margin outlook partly offsets the heavier cost base. ^[22]

In simple terms:

2025 margins expanded nicely.
2026 margins are now guided lower, as AJ Bell spends more on marketing, brand and proposition development.
That investment may support long‑term growth, but it means near‑term profits will be lower than previously pencilled in by the market.

For a stock already trading on a mid‑20s earnings multiple, even modest downgrades can trigger a sharp share price reaction.

ISA reforms and rising regulatory complexity

A second drag on sentiment is the UK government’s evolving approach to ISAs.

Reuters reports that AJ Bell warned about added costs from Britain’s ISA reforms, stating that its 2026 revenue margin will moderate after a boost from foreign‑exchange dealing this year and as providers absorb new administrative requirements. ^[23]

CEO Michael Summersgill is quoted as calling the ISA changes one of the most complex interventions he has seen in the market, arguing that they add cost and complexity for both providers and customers rather than making investing simpler. ^[24]

Budget commentary from AJ Bell and external outlets highlights concerns about:

Age‑specific ISA allowances for cash
New charges on cash held in Stocks & Shares ISAs
An overall direction of travel towards more tax and less shelter for savers, rather than simplification ^[25]

BusinessDesk and City A.M. both note that AJ Bell has publicly criticised the Chancellor’s Budget and the associated “wild speculation” that drove some investors to withdraw pension lump sums before the detail was known. ^[26]

Put together, investors are being asked to look through:

A near‑term margin squeeze from higher investment spend
Possible long‑run cost creep from ISA and pension policy changes

That combination goes a long way to explaining why the share price is down despite record performance.

Analyst ratings and AJ Bell share price forecasts

Broker recommendations

Recent data from MarketBeat and Investing.com paints a picture of broadly neutral but slightly positive analyst sentiment:

MarketBeat (as of late November) reports an average recommendation of “Hold” from 7 analysts, comprising 3 Buys, 3 Holds and 1 Sell. ^[27]
Investing.com’s UK consensus page, which aggregates around 12–13 analysts, describes the rating as leaning towards “Buy”, with a similar mix of buy, hold and one sell recommendation. ^[28]

So while no one is presenting AJ Bell as a deep‑value secret, the street overall still expects modest upside.

Price targets

On price targets, there is tight clustering in the mid‑500p area:

MarketBeat: average 12‑month target of 542.86p, with a range from 460p to 625p – implying around 10% upside from a price of about 491.6p. ^[29]
Investing.com UK consensus: average target of 560p, with a high of 625p and low near 475p, based on projections from 12–13 analysts. ^[30]
Directorstalk’s stock‑analysis article (3 December) also cites an average target of 560p and describes upside of roughly 6% from a then‑price of 528.5p. ^[31]

More colour from MarketBeat’s earlier alert: ^[32]

Deutsche Bank lifted its AJ Bell target from 600p to 625p with a “buy” rating.
UBS reiterated a “neutral” stance with a 550p objective.
Citigroup raised its target from 440p to 475p but keeps a “sell” rating.
Royal Bank of Canada and Berenberg sit in the middle with “sector perform”/“hold” style calls in the 460–490p range.

In short, the broker community largely agrees that the shares are not obviously cheap, but they still see mid‑single to low‑double‑digit upside over 12 months, assuming AJ Bell executes on its growth plan.

Quant and technical views: short‑term caution

Not all models are upbeat in the near term.

Technical‑analysis site StockInvest.us downgraded AJ Bell to a “Sell candidate” on 3 December 2025, citing: ^[33]

A short run of daily price declines before results
Sell signals from both short‑ and long‑term moving averages
Rising volume on down days

However, even that system still projects that, based on the current trend, the stock could rise about 3.3% over the next three months, with a 90% probability of trading between roughly 523p and 583p in that timeframe.

Directorstalk’s 3 December analysis noted the share price was then trading slightly below its 50‑day moving average but above its 200‑day average, with an RSI around 37 – suggesting the stock was edging toward oversold territory before the latest results‑day drop. ^[34]

Taken together, technical indicators point to weak short‑term momentum but no clear breakdown of the longer‑term uptrend.

Strategic positioning: dual‑channel platform in a structurally growing market

Several of today’s articles circle back to the same structural story:

AJ Bell operates at scale in both advised (AJ Bell Investcentre) and direct‑to‑consumer markets. ^[35]
The company estimates that over two‑thirds of the UK’s £3.7 trillion of eligible investable wealth remains off‑platform, representing a large runway for growth. ^[36]
Its product suite – spanning SIPPs, ISAs, and general investment accounts – is aimed at making investing accessible with competitive fees, supported by a strong digital experience. ^[37]

City A.M. and others highlight AJ Bell’s high Trustpilot scores (around 4.9‑stars) and consistently high customer‑retention rates as evidence that the platform is executing well on service quality. ^[38]

Management has also streamlined the group by selling its non‑platform Platinum SIPP and SSAS pension business to InvestAcc for £25m, allowing capital and focus to remain on the core platform operations. ^[39]

The investment case in one paragraph (and a big caveat)

From today’s news flow, the bullish argument for AJ Bell looks like this:

Strong structural tailwinds in UK retail investing and pensions
Proven ability to attract and retain customers at scale
High and rising AUA and AUM, with robust net inflows
Attractive cash generation allowing for progressive dividends and sizeable buybacks
A business model with operational gearing that could expand margins again beyond FY26 as investment spend normalises ^[40]

The bearish counterpoints are:

A not‑cheap valuation in the mid‑20s P/E range
Near‑term margin compression (39–40% guided vs 43%+ today)
Rising regulatory and tax complexity around ISAs and pensions, which may raise costs and dampen retail risk‑taking
Competition from other UK platforms and low‑cost brokers