St. James's Place Share Discussion Threads

[pj fozzie] 25/10/2018 16:29

OK - I'll go along with this, as your scenario is not too dissimilar to my own situation. (Although my company pension is not final salary - it's set up by default to give me the option of either:
a) use it to buy an annuity
b) take 25% tax free and then buy an annuity
or anything more complex than above, I need to request a transfer of the whole value to an alternative pension provider.

I am over 50 but not yet 55. I will retire as soon as I am 55.

I already have a SIPP with funds consolidated from previous pensions funds (previous employment and other contributions I've made over the years)

So - let me go through your 5 questions of my expected payments.

1. An initial fee. OK - I've not taken any paid advice at all - but I accept that many people would not be comfortable in this situation. I've decided that what will be best for me is to transfer the whole value of my company pension into my existing SIPP, then take 25% tax free and move into a flexible draw down model. However - I feel that it would be reasonable to consult an advisor to reach a similar kind of conclusion, if I did not have the confidence to make that decision myself. I would expect some kind of fixed fee for that advice, reflecting the time that would be taken by the advisor in understanding my personal situation, my requirements and then proposing a possible solution. Maybe half a day's work for the FA? A two hour consultation followed by a write up of the recommendation?

2. An ongoing fee for platform. So I use Interactive Investor and I think their fees are reasonable. I use their Trading platform for an ISA account, a plain trading account and a SIPP. Cost, less than £200 a year. Trading fees are paid almost entirely out of the trading credit from the quarterly fee payments. I buy each month using the regular investment feature - thus £1 a trade. Since I don't do 22 trades a quarter - my trading credit is currently in surplus. I very rarely sell a holding.

3. Underlying investment funds - hmm - tricky - what are we including here? Just Unit Trusts? ETFs? Investment Trusts? VCTs? I own stuff in all four of those categories and the % fee varies from really low (Vanguard index tracker) to not so low (VCTs - but the TAX advantage is forgiving). But basically - which ever fund I'm buying units in - the underlying fund fee is the same regardless of who advised me to buy it or through whatever platform - maybe. I realise I may be on shaky ground here as I get some fees refunded to me from Interactive Investor - so perhaps not all platforms are the same. I'm happy to learn something new?

4. Not too sure I fully understand what you're asking here?

5. As an ongoing Advisor fee. Again, let's say I wanted an annual financial health check, like a car MOT - or maybe a six monthly check up - a bit like a dentist, then I certainly feel it's reasonable to pay people for their time. I guess a dentist is a good example - my last six monthly check up was about £50 I think. Maybe a financial adviser needs a bit more time - so let's be generous and say £200? Maybe if I'm happy with how things are I can skip an appointment or two - or even make one earlier than initially envisioned because I have a tooth ache. I'd expect that I'd have a similar relationship with my Financial Advisor (and I think my regular meetings with the FA would cover point 4 as well.)

That's a quick brain dump of my thoughts on reasonable fees.

What's your take?

Cheers,
PJ

[pj fozzie] 25/10/2018 14:01

dexdringle: please do educate me then. I've only ever heard negative stuff and never a rebuttal - I'm genuinely interested to know a counter to the claims against STJ re fees. I have no vested interest other than a holding of STJ shares for the divi income.

Cheers,
PJ

[dexdringle] 25/10/2018 13:04

Ahhhh ok then

[pj fozzie] 25/10/2018 12:39

Because of the fees they charge! They provide a service for people with wealth who know no better, who happily wash their own hands of the responsibility of investing and leave it to the "experts". So %fees are charged on the customers funds under management by STJ as well as the underlying funds fees in which the cust money ends up in. Generally STJ's fees are larger than the underlying fund OCFs. Typically the customer hasn't a clue about how much of his stash is going in fees each year, because it wont be all broken out.

There was a report published recently on STJ's fee structure - lomax posted in earlier in this board (post 160), it's quite an eye opener.

Cheers,
PJ

[dexdringle] 24/10/2018 08:39

pj fozzie 23 Oct '18 - 12:21 - 165 of 165

"I love the STJ business model as an investor - but I'd never touch them with a bargepole as a customer :-)"

Why not ?

[pj fozzie] 23/10/2018 12:21

For sure - long term is what it's all about. My STJ are in my SIPP - so when I retire next year, it's just gonna be the dividends I drawdown for my pension. I'm looking to probably add a few more STJ on the current weakness. Each month I use the divs generated over the previous 30 days to buy some more of something and right now STJ looks to be begging for this months top up.

I love the STJ business model as an investor - but I'd never touch them with a bargepole as a customer :-)

Cheers,
PJ

[l4z4rus] 23/10/2018 11:40

Nothing much I would say. Market jitters but the money keeps landing here. Think long term!

[pj fozzie] 23/10/2018 09:22

Q3 results look good to me, continuing good growth. I don't understand the price drop - a growth stock yielding over 4% - what am I missing here?

Cheers,
PJ

[dexdringle] 03/10/2018 09:33

Ridiculous story !

[lomax99] 03/10/2018 08:48

Interesting article on how effective STJ are at extracting a margin from Fund managers, and a comment on their target market:




St James’s Place, the wealth manager, is taking up to 39 times more in client fees than it passes on to the star fund managers on which its business model is based, according to a study.

Across its 36 proprietary funds, SJP collected £926 million in fees from clients over a year, but only £247 million was then passed on to the third-party asset managers that do the actual stockpicking.

The FTSE 100 company handles £97 billion on behalf of almost two-thirds of a million well-heeled clients. While its pitch to customers is that it gives them unprecedented and easy access to a broad range of stockpicking stars, a relatively small portion of the fees are passed on to those stars, according to research by Citywire, the financial information group that specialises in tracking the performance of fund managers.


the total fees charged to clients of its UK High Income unit trust, which is run by Neil Woodford’s Woodford Investment Management, £5.5 million was passed to Woodford, while SJP took £25.4 million. SJP took £113 million in fees from clients of its largest fund, the £9 billion Global Equity fund, while the outside manager, Blackrock, received only £18.2 million.

In the most extreme case, its £1.2 billion hedge fund offering, Alternative Assets fund, SJP’s fee was £15.5 million, 39 times more than the £402,000 paid to the manager at the time, Blackrock. Blackrock has since been replaced by Wellington Management.

In a report published today, Citywire said that it was “startling” how SJP was able to charge so much more than the money passed on to fund managers, and questioned whether all of SJP’s clients were getting value for money.

The report also found that most of the SJP funds had delivered fairly pedestrian returns over the past three years. Two of the 36 were in the top quartile and 13 were in the bottom quartile when compared with industry-wide data provided by Lipper.

Even adjusting for technical differences that flatter rivals, SJP fund performances were only fractionally better than the median average, with nine funds still in the bottom quartile and only four of 36 funds outperforming Citywire’s own benchmarks.

A spokesman for SJP said that the fees it charged covered not only fund management but a string of other services including administration, platform costs, client advice and investment monitoring. It was not all taken as profits, he stressed.

The average client invested for 14 years and SJP’s solutions were designed to create wealth over the long term, the spokesman said. On average, 87 per cent of SJP portfolios consistently outperformed its preferred benchmark, the ARC Private Client Indices, over rolling five-year periods.

SJP, which operates through a network of 3,800 self-employed advisers, is seen by some as taking high fees, often charging an upfront 5 per cent of investors’ porfolios. Those not paying high initial fees can be hit with large exit penalties if they decide to take their nest eggs elsewhere.

However, many clients are unsophisticated investors and are happy to pay for an increased level of handholding and a personalised approach. They are mostly very loyal, with 96 per cent of client funds retained each year.

SJP’s “bundled approach” to fees made it hard for clients to see what they were paying for, Citywire said. “It is hard to see where the cost of investment ends and the cost of advice begins.”

Clients with complex needs did best because advice on areas such as tax and inheritance planning came free as part of the service, Citywire added. Clients with simple needs could probably do better elsewhere.

Savers hand over £29m a day
There are ten million people in Britain with investible assets of £50,000 or more. So far St James’s Place and its 3,800 self-employed advisers have signed up 650,000 of them to the SJP formula (Patrick Hosking writes).

In the first half of this year, they handed over cash to SJP at the rate of £29 million per day as they sought someone they could trust to advise them on pensions and ISAs and help them channel the money to fund managers with the pedigree to help grow it. Rising levels of wealth, new pension freedoms and the ever-growing complexity of the financial services industry has produced booming demand for hands-on advice. SJP specialises not in the super-rich, but the professional classes with £50,000-£;500,000 in long-term savings.

It operates a string of exclusive funds managed by big-name fund managers like Neil Woodford, or overseas-based investment stars whose funds are not easily accessed otherwise by UK investors.

[l4z4rus] 02/8/2018 09:23

Seem to remember a similar hefty drop when Bellamy left. Lamb was his right hand man. Picked up a few more also as expecting these to revert once news digested. Divi and FUM up, this should just keep rolling.

[gbh2] 01/8/2018 17:13

Picked a few up near to the close, is there a reason for the 3% fall, was it expected?

[its the oxman] 01/8/2018 14:02

Decent enough results div up 20% , nice , fum now pushing close to 100bn.

[its the oxman] 19/1/2018 11:01

Heading up , hoping for close to 1500p this year.

[its the oxman] 15/8/2017 10:39

HSBC target up to 1350p

[l4z4rus] 27/7/2017 07:15

So, not too shabby at all.

[l4z4rus] 25/7/2017 09:23

And what of it? Time and again this stock deals with negative press (some might say by those that doth protest too much, too often) and cracks on. Let's see what Thursday half year results brings. I suspect they may be OK.

[dondee] 24/7/2017 22:16

Awful write-up in Sunday Times on 23/7/17 by top journalist Ali Hussain on the high charges and the fact that some SJP advisers do not give accurate advice. Hmmm!

[denbos] 22/5/2017 10:56

Oxman - Your right on both counts - quiet board & 2000 in 3 to 4 years.

[its the oxman] 26/4/2017 20:41

Strangely quiet board for such a decent growth stock.

[its the oxman] 25/4/2017 00:03

3 to 4 year time frame is my guess.

[its the oxman] 25/4/2017 00:01

See this going to 2000p. Hold tight.

[montyhedge] 04/3/2017 14:56

Never liked this company.