St James’s Place, the wealth management and life assurance group controlled by HBOS, on Tuesday announced a 54 per cent increase in operating profit for 2006 and said it would pay a special dividend to shareholders “due to significant one-off cash generation during 2006.”

Operating profit on a European Embedded Value (EEV) basis was £176m (£114.5m) compared with a consensus analyst forecast of £173m.