Arbuthnot, which has its roots in 185-year-old private and commercial bank and wealth manager Arbuthnot Latham, said pretax profit increased to 3.5 million pounds ($4.6 million) from 2.5 million pounds a year earlier.

"In line with our diversification strategy we have also reached an agreement with an incoming management team to establish a new lending division that will be named Arbuthnot Specialist Lending," Chairman Henry Angest said.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri)