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Britain\u2019s oldest private bank reported a fall in profit before tax to \u00a363.7m for the year to 31 March 2025, blaming a Bank Rate cut and customers shifting into higher\u2011paying alternatives even as deposits and lending grew.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
C. Hoare & Co, Britain\u2019s oldest private bank, reported a marked fall in profits for the year to 31 March 2025 and warned that an increasingly uncertain global environment has left the UK outlook \u201cincreasingly subdued.\u201d According to the bank\u2019s audited financial report, profit before tax dropped to \u00a363.7 million from \u00a380.8 million a year earlier, while the chair\u2019s foreword highlighted both lower interest rates and renewed trade tensions as headwinds. The bank\u2019s public filings frame the decline as a consequence of external macroeconomic shifts rather than a deterioration in its core lending franchise.<\/p>\n
The audited accounts set out the scale of the change: total income fell to \u00a3249.4 million from \u00a3271.7 million, a contraction the bank attributed to a combination of a lower short\u2011term policy rate and customers reallocating funds into higher\u2011paying alternatives. Industry coverage corroborated the headline fall in pre\u2011tax profit and noted the same income drivers, while emphasising that the bank continues to serve a wealthy, largely UK\u2011based client base including long\u2011standing landed families.<\/p>\n
C. Hoare & Co explicitly linked part of the revenue squeeze to the shift in Bank Rate during the reporting period. The Bank of England\u2019s minutes for the meeting ending 5 February 2025 record a 0.25 percentage\u2011point cut in Bank Rate to 4.5 per cent, a move the bank says reduced the margin earned on short\u2011term loan assets. The annual report also describes customers moving into higher\u2011paying deposit and investment options as a pressure on traditional net interest income.<\/p>\n
Despite the fall in earnings, the balance sheet showed expansion in core volumes. Customer deposits rose by around 5.4 per cent to \u00a36,427 million and lending increased by some 6.5 per cent to \u00a32,352 million over the year, figures disclosed in the financial statements and noted by trade press. The bank\u2019s reporting frames this as evidence of continuing client trust and franchise resilience even as returns on those balances were compressed.<\/p>\n
Global trade frictions also feature prominently in the bank\u2019s assessment of the outlook. The annual report characterises recent US tariff announcements as creating \u201cunprecedented disruption\u201d to supply chains and says it is \u201cfutile\u201d to try to predict the final scale of levies on imports \u2014 language that signals caution about the knock\u2011on effects for UK growth. Independent reporting on corporate responses to tariff volatility has documented how manufacturers and other firms are investing in supply\u2011chain intelligence and artificial intelligence tools to manage day\u2011to\u2011day risk, underscoring the broader economic adjustment that the bank referenced.<\/p>\n
C. Hoare & Co remains entirely family\u2011owned and structured on an unlimited liability basis, a fact reiterated on the bank\u2019s governance pages and in its regulatory disclosures. The partners\u2019 roster includes members of the Hoare family alongside non\u2011executive directors and senior management, and the bank emphasises conservative risk management, capital strength and continuity of service as central to its strategy.<\/p>\n
In his chair\u2019s foreword to the annual report, Lord Nick Macpherson \u2014 the bank\u2019s chairman and a former Treasury permanent secretary \u2014 warned that the UK has \u201cyet to break out of its low productivity\u2011low growth cycle\u201d, and characterised the year ahead as uncertain. The report nevertheless stresses the bank\u2019s strategic priorities of resilience, capital adequacy and customer service continuity, presenting the profit decline as a cyclical responsiveness to policy and market moves rather than a structural failing.<\/p>\n