XPS Pensions Group Plc reports record revenue and profit growth for FY 2026

XPS Pensions Group Plc (LON:XPS) has reported full year results for the year ended 31 March 2026, with revenue, adjusted EBITDA and profit before tax all increasing year on year.

Financial highlights:

⁽¹⁾        Adjusted measures exclude the impact of acquisition related amortisation, share based payments, exceptional costs and the fair value adjustment to contingent consideration.

⁽²⁾        The McCloud remedy project (“McCloud”) within Administration drove significant revenue in FY 2025 and was largely complete by the statutory deadline of 31 March 2025

⁽³⁾        Net debt is gross bank debt less cash. Net debt/adjusted EBITDA is calculated on a pre-IFRS 16 basis.

⁽⁴⁾        Organic means excluding the impact of the Polaris acquisition which completed on 28 February 2025.  Polaris contributed revenues of £16.1 million in Advisory in FY 2026.

• Continued strong client demand, expansion of services and expansion into insurance consulting drove the fourth consecutive year of double digit growth with revenues up 13% (+7% organic⁽⁴⁾)
• Advisory revenues grew 20% (8% organic) driven by ongoing regulatory changes, high demand for risk transfer and GMP services and support for insurance clients
• Administration revenues grew 5% YoY due to strong demand for GMP and other project work plus onboarding of new client wins. Excluding the impact of McCloud, underlying revenues grew 18% YoY
• Another year of growth in SIP revenues (+10%) from SIP sales and increases in bank interest
• Group revenues, after adjusting for McCloud in the prior year, grew 18%, of which 12% was organic
• Adjusted EBITDA grew 9% notwithstanding the impact of the higher employer National Insurance contributions; excluding McCloud adjusted EBITDA growth exceeded revenue growth reflecting further delivery of operational gearing as the business scales
• The business model remains capital light and highly cash generative with operating cash conversion >90%
• Net debt/adjusted EBITDA⁽¹⁾ of 0.64x at 31 March 2026 (31 March 2025: 0.57x); remains below target range of 1.0x – 1.5x, providing strong platform for inorganic growth opportunities as part of an established capital allocation policy
• Adjusted profit before tax (PBT) was up 8% in line with EBITDA growth. Statutory PBT was down 5% YoY primarily due to the IFRS 3 accounting treatment of the Polaris contingent consideration
• Total dividend per share for the year of 13.2p, up 11% YoY, including final dividend proposed of 9.1p – reflecting the Board’s continued confidence in the Group’s prospects
• Continued development of service offerings to be the market leading provider across all advisory and administration services needed by pension trustees, sponsors and insurers:
• Further development of advisory services to meet the changing needs of well-funded defined benefit schemes – leading in run-on solutions and continued growth in risk transfer
• Continuing to build a scalable administration platform with further roll out of Aurora and proprietary AI solutions
• Appointed administrators to the Met Police pension scheme with 80,000 members, reflecting our extensive experience in supporting police forces and our reputation as a best-in-class provider enhanced by timely delivery of the McCloud remedy project
• Polaris acquisition integrated well and continued investment in insurance consulting giving rise to large opportunities to support insurers, with “follow the member” strategy leading to further opportunities with insurers writing bulk annuities
• Well-established brand further enhanced by multiple industry awards across all our service lines – ‘Third Party Administrator of the Year’, ‘Run-on Adviser of the Year’, ‘Fiduciary Evaluator of the Year’, ‘Sponsor Covenant Adviser of the Year’ at the recent UK Pensions Awards
• Continued focus on our people – awarded ‘Best Medium Sized Organisation for Business Culture’, and strong satisfaction scores in our recent employee survey. We also launched our Employee Value Proposition this year to further reinforce our commitment to being a great place to work

Paul Cuff, Co-CEO of XPS Group, commented:

“We are delighted that for the fourth year in a row we have achieved strong growth and are reporting another excellent set of financial results.

The pensions world is rapidly evolving, with improved funding levels and changing regulation opening up a wide range of opportunities for our clients. We are operating right at the heart of this transformation and continue to see strong demand for our services. Whether a scheme is to run on to release value to the sponsor and members, or whether other solutions such as insurance or superfunds are preferable, we are able to provide strong strategic support and excellent implementation across the board.

We have also been very pleased with the growth of our insurance consulting practice, which we have been investing in as we see the worlds of pensions and insurance increasingly overlap. Our acquisition of Polaris a year ago has integrated well, and we are now supporting insurance companies in a wide variety of areas.”

Ben Bramhall, Co-CEO of XPS Group, commented:

“We continue to innovate in the business, and the art of the possible is changing rapidly with the acceleration of AI. We are embracing this technology and are excited about how it will help us support our people and deliver an ever better experience for our clients and pension scheme members as well as additional growth opportunities.

We are extremely proud of our people at XPS. We were delighted to win “best medium sized organisation for business culture” at the UK Business Culture awards – a fantastic achievement, and truly an award for everyone at our firm. We would like to thank all our people for their contribution to the excellent results we are announcing today.”

Outlook

The Group has delivered aggregate revenue growth of over 100% over the last five financial years including the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth in revenues this year. Run-on-for-surplus extraction or buy-out remain most topical with trustee boards and corporates, continuing to generate high demand for our services. Our reputation in administration, particularly public sector administration remains strong, reflected in our recent appointment to the Metropolitan Police Pension Scheme which will go live in the latter part of FY 2027 and become our largest public sector client with 80,000 members. We have expanded our target addressable market to £4.5 billion per annum with the investment in growing our insurance consulting capabilities and are excited about the opportunities to deploy wider XPS services into this adjacency.

We have invested in our capabilities, our people and our technology. With this strong underpin, expansion of our addressable markets and continuous changes in the regulatory and market environment, we are confident of further growth in FY 2027 and beyond in line with the Board’s expectations.