British wealth manager Rathbone Brothers registered a higher profit for the year ended 31 December 2018, but raised concerns over the impact of Brexit on the value of its funds.

The firm’s underlying pretax profit for the twelve months to December 2018 was £91.6m, up 5% from £87.5m a year ago.

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Underlying operating expenses rose 11% to £220.4m in 2018 from £198.5m in 2017.

Underlying operating income in Investment Management was £275.3m , compared to £254.6m last year.

The figure includes £8.7m from Scottish investment manager Speirs & Jeffrey, which Rathbones acquired last August.

The net annual growth rate of funds under management and administration for investment management increased to 23.5% in 2018 from 3.9% in the previous year.

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This includes £1.1bn of net organic growth and £6.8bn of acquired inflows.

Underlying operating income in Unit Trusts soared 17% to £36.7m on a year-on-year basis.

Rathbones CEO Philip Howell said: “Markets during the first half of 2018 were slow to react to the growing economic and political uncertainties that were widely reported.

“They did however begin to reflect sentiment more closely during the second half of the year when we saw the considerable falls in asset levels that have perhaps reset expectations for 2019.

“Our own funds under management and administration grew to €44.1 billion at 31 December 2018 (2017: £39.1 billion).”

Regarding Brexit, the firm said that its operational impact would be “relatively small”.

This, according to the firm, is due to the fact that it is a UK business with a client base of mainly local clients and no operations in other markets of the European Union.

Rathbones chairman Mark Nicholls said: “In particular Brexit will bring no changes to the basis or nature of the services we provide to the vast majority of our clients and investors who are based in the UK.

“However, we recognise the impact of Brexit more generally could affect the value of our funds under management and administration.”