St. James's Place Share Discussion Threads

[tim 3] 10/3/2024 14:24

Their HO admin department is shockingly bad.

When I contacted them about a letter THEY sent me about a mistake they had made they could not find it and despite promising several times to call back never did.

Ended up getting sorted by their local advisor it took over 6 months to get the money owed though.

[jakleeds] 10/3/2024 14:08

SJP complaints grow over mis-selling, high fees and poor service
Thousands of the wealth firm’s clients are demanding their money back after grievances more than doubled in a year, says Ali Hussain
March 10 2024, The Sunday Times
Complaints against St James’s Place, Britain’s largest wealth manager, have more than doubled in a year as its customers rail against high fees, confusing charges and poor service.
The Financial Ombudsman Service told The Sunday Times that since April 1 2023, 492 complaints have been made about St James’s Place (SJP), up from 236 in the 12 months from April 2022.
SJP, which has a network of about 4,800 financial advisers who act as sales agents for the firm’s products, has bowed to regulatory pressure to reform its fees and repay £426 million to customers who paid for advice they didn’t receive. It is unclear when payments will be made or how many of its 950,000 customers will receive them.
• St James’s Place braced for £426m payout — and this is just the beginning
Thousands of its clients have demanded money back. Some say they were mis-sold products, while others paid for regular reviews of their investments that they didn’t get. Many customers said the reviews dried up after the first few and that their SJP advisers could be difficult to get hold of. SJP has already switched off the automatic annual fee of 0.5 per cent for about 19,000 of its customers where it found no evidence of regular reviews being provided.
The ombudsman has found in favour of SJP customers in 39 per cent of cases in this tax year, up from 32 per cent the year before. When considering all investment-related complaints the ombudsman found in favour of customers 32 per cent of the time overall, up from 30 per cent the year before.
The main complaints against SJP related to the mis-selling of products (for example, because a product was unsuitable for a customer), poor service, and for fees and commission.
The law firm AMK Legal, based in Bolton, is making compensation claims on behalf of 15,000 SJP clients. The firm will take 40 per cent of any payout, plus VAT. AMK claims that it has a 70 per cent success rate and that it was instrumental in forcing SJP to announce its £426 million compensation fund this month. SJP denies this.
The £426 million figure is based on five years of potential claims dating back to 2018. However, AMK has won claims against SJP going back to 2013, when rules were introduced requiring wealth managers to agree fees with clients when they join a firm rather than paying its advisers through commissions. Michael Jordan from AMK said: “We have already secured over £13 million in refunds for 4,000 [SJP] clients. In its announcement SJP said it will be looking at refunds from 2018 to 2023, but AMK has secured refunds going back to 2013.”
• I was bullied and belittled by St James’s Place, but I was right all along
The ombudsman has urged customers to contact it for redress, saying there is no need to use a professional claims manager. You must first make a complaint to SJP (sjp.co.uk/help-centre/make-complaint) and give it up to eight weeks to respond before you can complain to the ombudsman.

[jakleeds] 10/3/2024 13:56

Underperforming loans to St James’s Place advisers more than double

Interest rates exacerbate repayment difficulties among partners and could put pressure on UK wealth manager’s model

SJP has a network of 4,800 financial advisers, who work at partner firms © Gareth Iwan
Sally Hickey in London MARCH 8 2024


The amount of underperforming loans extended by St James’s Place to its advisers more than doubled last year, as rising interest rates affected the ability of partners at the FTSE 100 wealth manager to repay money owed.

The amount of loans to partners that were either more than 30 days overdue, or had expired and were being renegotiated, more than doubled to £44.6mn at the end of 2023 compared with £17.7mn at the start of the year, according to its annual accounts. SJP classes these loans on its books as “underperforming”.


The company said the rise was as a result of both higher interest rates and a “challenging operating environment” affecting partners’ ability to repay the loans in full.

Widespread difficulties among SJP advisers in paying back their loans could put pressure on the company’s business model, which relies on these “business sale and purchase scheme” loans to retain clients within the group when advisers want to leave or slim down their practice book. 

SJP has a network of 4,800 financial advisers, who work at partner firms and take home a cut of the fees that clients are charged for receiving financial advice. When advisers retire, they typically sell their client books on to other advisers in the SJP network, who use loans facilitated by SJP in order to do this. The wealth manager guarantees some of these loans, which are drawn from a consortium of external banks.

SJP sets the interest rate of the loans, which are currently 3.5 percentage points above the base rate of interest. For much of the past 15 years this has sat at or below 0.5 per cent, meaning advisers were paying 4 per cent on their loans. The steep rise in interest rates over the past two years has pushed this up to 8.75 per cent.

SJP defines underperforming loans in this context as those that are more than 30 days overdue, or where the loan facility has expired and is in the process of being renegotiated. Meanwhile, a non-performing loan is one where the loan is to a partner who has left the SJP partnership, or to a partner that management thinks is at significant risk of leaving and when an orderly settlement of debt is considered to be in question.

The total amount of both underperforming and non-performing loans on SJP’s books rose from £22.3mn to £53.1mn over the course of last year.

The firm said: “[In our BSP scheme] we continue to have low write-off rates, which evidences the prudent nature of our approach to lending. Our confidence in financing this scheme remains very strong and incorporates a balance of internal and external funding sources.

“The levels of delinquency reported, whilst higher than prior periods, reflect the difficult operating environment and higher interest rates. They are not out of line with SME loan performance and not indicative of significantly higher credit losses.”

Last year, the Financial Times revealed that SJP is planning to raise up to £1bn to buy the businesses of retiring partners, as it tackles the issues wrought by higher interest rates and its increasing scale. 

[dexdringle] 08/3/2024 14:45

"""Private equity firm Pollen Street Capital has agreed to buy Mattioli Woods as part of a £432mn deal which would take the listed company private.

Mattioli Woods has 138 advisers, a client base of more than 20,000 wealth clients with more than £15bn of assets under management"""

They have paid 2.8% of assets under management.

So what price a business with 4,800 advisers, 950,000 clients and £168bn under management ?

[dexdringle] 08/3/2024 13:50

They could change it to St James's Palace which is what most folks think it is anyway 🤣

[andrewhbruce] 08/3/2024 12:18

It’s a dead duck and deservedly so. Next stop change the name. Any suggestions?!

[tim 3] 08/3/2024 12:10

QP.

Agree, the drop in net inflows has to be a huge concern.

I think investors will need to see this improve before we see any real confidence return.

[jakleeds] 08/3/2024 10:38

Interesting that the new CEO hasn’t bought any shares despite the massive drop……

I wonder how long he’ll stick it out here…..

[jakleeds] 08/3/2024 10:34

They’d planned to raise £1 billion to help fund advisers buying other advisers’ books. I guess that has been axed as well.

[quepassa] 08/3/2024 10:16

I see another potential major challenge looming.

They've historically had very high client retention rates. I have to believe that the high exit charges were a significant contributory factor.

Amidst a deluge of negative press and with those exit fees now slashed, I can foresee that those historically high retention rates will come under increasing pressure.

A likely harbinger of this is the recent halving in net inflows from £10bn to £5bn.

ALL IMO. DYOR.
QP

[tim 3] 08/3/2024 09:10

There lies the problem.

To much money sloshing around, expensive cars, huge bonuses for directors despite underperforming and advisors given exotic holidays and jewellery.All paid for by clients sky high fees.

All sounds very 1980's as do many other things about how this company operates.

[dexdringle] 08/3/2024 09:00

The destruction of shareholder value here has been astonishing.

The board either didn't see all this coming. Or did see all this coming but did nothing about it. Either way it isn't good enough.

And Croft walked away two months ago having earned millions for years not doing the job properly.

[jakleeds] 08/3/2024 08:41

£3 by Xmas

[jakleeds] 08/3/2024 08:34

Alfred, dexdringle said 5% not 10%

However, these are only going one way from here. The next news will be even worse than previous news imo.

Way too much uncertainty.

[alfred neuman] 08/3/2024 00:35

jackdaw4243 - 06 Mar 2024 - 11:35:13 - 818 of 826
“… silly me another share for the bottom draw to be opened in 5 years time.”

This thicko can’t even spell the word “drawer”

You really couldn’t make it up

[alfred neuman] 08/3/2024 00:29

How are you getting a 10% return if you bought at over £10
_______

dexdringle - 07 Mar 2024 - 15:32:54 - 824 of 825

I have a significant number of these at over £10. Thinking at the time of buying "well, if they don't go back up to £17, at least I'm still getting a 50p (5%) dividend".

[dexdringle] 07/3/2024 15:32

Very wise that.

I have a significant number of these at over £10. Thinking at the time of buying "well, if they don't go back up to £17, at least I'm still getting a 50p (5%) dividend". D'ohhhh 🤦‍a94;️

[pugugly] 06/3/2024 21:46

tim3: Totally agree and likewise cancelled - However brokers notes are usually equally bad and after MIFID very difficult to obtain. Bloomberg screen shots if you can get your broker to let you have one a bit like a shotgun with a very wide range of targets. Forget most of the webcasts except to get a feel of the executives body language- shifty of possibly honest. Tip sheets on balance probably a quick route to financial loss.

So where does one find possibly valid research?

[action] 06/3/2024 21:30

Someone did say that he will buy at 400p couple of months ago . Don't know who on this board.

[tim 3] 06/3/2024 13:12

Used to subscribe to IC.

Their recs were so bad decided to dig a little deeper into the jurnos who write their articles.

Was pretty shocked by the lack of experience of many, some were not long out of education with little to no "real world" investment experience and they were telling investors who probably had way more experience what to buy and sell!

Needless to say I cancelled my subscription.

[dexdringle] 06/3/2024 11:44

Yes, it's usually a good plan to do the opposite of what IC say.

But in this instance I think they might be right. They'll bounce to nearer £6 soon so I think you'll be showing a tidy profit before you know it...

[jackdaw4243] 06/3/2024 11:35

The I C is saying all the bad news is out and suggesting that STJ is a buy so I opened a modest position yesterday. True to form I C had it wrong, silly me another share for the bottom draw to be opened in 5 years time.