Brewin Dolphin's Glasgow growth

Executive chairman Jamie Matheson said that he would like ten more private client brokers in Glasgow, taking total staff in the city to 50.

The firm, which has 41 offices across the UK and the Channel Islands, yesterday revealed pre-tax profits rose from 21.9 million to 31.4m. Income was up 18 per cent to 250.9m, while funds under management grew from 20.5 billion to 23.3bn. Despite the profits surge, the firm chose not to increase its proposed final dividend of 3.55p, while the total dividend also remains unchanged at 7.1p.

In October it poached a team of eight, headed by Stephen Martin, from rival Adam & Company's Glasgow business. Earlier this year, veteran private client broker Alasdair Ronald also resigned from Barclays Wealth in Glasgow to take up a position as divisional director at Brewin.

Matheson said he was "cautiously optimistic" about the next six-12 months despite market jitters over the European sovereign debt crisis. "It (the crisis] is difficult to ignore but equally it would be wrong to be fixated by it," he said.

He warned that it had experienced a "material rise" in the cost of regulation over the past year.

"In particular we remain concerned about the 'one size fits all' approach which is more appropriate to businesses that merely sell financial products rather than businesses like ours whose principal activity is providing advice and service."

The accounts reveal the firm made a number of redundancies last year but Matheson dismissed this as "less than a handful of people".