St. James's Place Share Discussion Threads

[quepassa] 16/10/2023 16:51

i have no hate for sjp. i have no feelings for them whatsoever.

they are just a name on a piece of paper to me. but it is clear that their business model of high fees, as I clearly pointed out several years ago, is well and truly busted.

if any investor has emotional attachment to a share, they shouldn't (like you) be fiddling around with listed securities in the first place.

i don't really care what you think about the price, dex - other than to say that your calls hitherto have been wrong , wrong and wrong again.

[quepassa] 16/10/2023 16:12

See:-

182
183
184
185
186 187 etc

AND ESPECIALLY DEX's POST 199


dex, you were still blowing hot air up SJP's backside when the share price was 125% higher at 1600p in 2019 and openly mocking and deriding anyone who said the price was sliding.


lets face it, you are the one that has called this share TOTALLY WRONG time and time again.

You have ZERO CREDIBLITY on this stock.

[dexdringle] 16/10/2023 15:53

Well, you can be a sceptic about their charges or their fund performance or the quality of their advice. Or maybe all of these things. But, like it or not, they have lots of clients who are satisfied. Given the (apparent) shortage of advisers many SJP clients will be SJP or nothing. So would they be better with no adviser than with SJP ?

Yes, I appreciate that the tag line "we're better than nothing" isn't quite what they would hope for.

[quepassa] 16/10/2023 15:26

I've been a long-term sceptic of SJP and they are now getting the press they deserve.

Price has a lot further to fall in my view.

Caveat.

all imo. dyor.
qp

[dexdringle] 16/10/2023 11:07

Their fund performances are poor. Which is odd as you'd think they'd want to make sure they were good to justify the fees. There is literally no advantage to them having poor performance - in fact it reduces their funds under management and their overall take. I think some folks think they are doing it deliberately.

[tim 3] 16/10/2023 10:59

I think the whole cost structure is is outdated.

As an example are all these costly home visits really necessary?

With computers and questionnaires most things can be done without a home visit or maybe just a phone/zoom call and certainly not an annual review.

Or maybe have a different pay as you go cost structure for those who do require more help.

They also need to sort out many of their funds underperformance, if they did this who knows they may even attract more customers as am sure many currently avoid them because of their high charges.

[dexdringle] 16/10/2023 10:39

xxxxx tim 3 15 Oct '23 - 13:28 - 518 of 523

Or maybe they should look at why in this day and age they have to charge such high fees in the first place xxxxx

But, even with these 'high' fees, I don't recall them making massive profits. If they charged less they'd make no profit ?

[tim 3] 16/10/2023 10:29

I think thats a very optimistic and frankly unlikely outcome, seeing shares that have dropped like this where sentiment is really negative they rarely bounce back up that quickly. Assuming a positive outcome they are much more likely to establish support and maybe bounce and retest the low a few times before a slow move up and of course thats assuming they don't fall further.

You can tell me I'm wrong at year end lol

[dexdringle] 16/10/2023 10:17

The will adjust their charges to make them more simple and slightly cheaper, adjust their investment strategy to make it more effective and power forward. Expect £10 a share again before the year end....

[tim 3] 16/10/2023 09:23

Price looks to be stabilising if you look at the long term chart there is some fairly solid support in the 6-7 pound area.

[dexdringle] 15/10/2023 16:32

Crom3ell, you're spot on. The government actually do think everyone is stupid and that everyone needs protection from themselves. All part of the Nanny State I suppose and, I fear, ultimately about government control "you can't do XYZ unless we say you can" and "trust us as we are the only ones who can make you safe"

[cromw3ll] 15/10/2023 16:27

dex, you would not et a transfer value over £30k through now, and that's the problem, many have lost fees because of the strict over the top legislation these days. Why you need an IFA on just £30k TV is dreadful imo. You cannot sign a waiver or anything and I think its made a huge impact on the likes of SJP.

Too much government interference because they think we are stupid, I have a TV in a defined benefit of £60k and cannot do nothing with it, very frustrating.

[tim 3] 15/10/2023 13:28

Or maybe they should look at why in this day and age they have to charge such high fees in the first place.

[dexdringle] 14/10/2023 20:05

Well, they can stop exit fees for new clients and charge up front instead. That's easy. From a monitoring and execution point of view it is much harder to administer the exit fees as SJP currently do.

Clients who didn't pay up front, and are subject to the exit fees could, I suppose, be given the option to pay a reduced retrospective proportional initial fee in exchange for cancelling their exit fees. Not sure how many would do that.

SJP: "Mr Bloggs, do you want to pay us £3,000 so we cancel your early exit fees"

Mr Bloggs: "why the hell would I do that - I'm not going anywhere. I'd rather have the early exit fee that I'll never pay"

Clearly clients cannot avoid both an initial fee and an exit fee. They have to pay one or the other.

[joey wilson] 14/10/2023 18:12

Exit fees should be stopped for everyone. The problem they face is their performance for the last 3 years has been mediocre at best, diabolic at worst.For me, they have this next 12 months to improve their return. They are definitely not achieving 4% presently, and this is my minimum expectation. This has not been achieved for the last 2 years, and if it is not achieved this year, I will be looking at my options. Like many other people, I would suggest. Therefore, they do need to be concerned about their balance sheet going forward.JW

[dexdringle] 14/10/2023 15:18

Well, just for full disclosure, I am an SJP client in respect of about 25% of my investable wealth.

They did a DB transfer for me in 2017 where my transfer value at just over £200k was over 30x the projected income at 60 (I was 53 at the time). I paid no explicit up front fee and the whole transfer value was invested. Yes, I had a six year sliding scale exit fee but so what - I'm still there six years later and there is now no exit charge. The monies have grown at just under 4% pa AFTER CHARGES. I took my 25% tax free cash in 2022 which didn't suffer an exit fee because you get a 7.5% cumulative Annual Withdrawal Allowance which covered it. The plan is now still worth over £190k despite me having taken out £60k (25% of £240k as the balance was as at 2022).

If I'd left it in the DB scheme and I die, as I am not married my partner would have received only a refund of my original contributions to the scheme in the 1980's. Pennies basically. Whereas now she would get the whole £190k pot tax free.

In short it has been epic in every respect. I have absolutely no issue with SJP's charges nor the service I have received. Nor the investment performance. I doubt I could have achieved this so easily elsewhere.

[meijiman] 14/10/2023 10:40

Very good that this lot have been revealed as rob dogs...not a holder but have always disliked their modus operandi.

[tim 3] 14/10/2023 09:49

"Just before the Consumer Duty rules came into force, SJP declared a cap on annual management charges for clients who had invested in bond and pension investments for over a decade.But, according to the FT, this has not sufficiently satisfied regulators, who have asked bosses to justify maintaining exit fees for current customers while abolishing them for new ones.

In addition, it reported that the FCA was considering whether customers were best served by significant upfront advice costs and finding it difficult not to pay advice fees in the distant future.

However, SJP is worried that abolishing exit fees for existing clients could cause substantial damage to its balance sheet."

[jgoldby] 14/10/2023 07:06

How long is it before questions about management incompetence get replaced with questions about fraud?

Details of governance issues appear, data protection failures, modern slavery issues there could be an awful lot that cannot be published but is widely known.

Auditors start to dig deeper and assets get written down.

[tim 3] 14/10/2023 00:38

Could get uglier

[pander45] 13/10/2023 23:40

This is one of the ugliest charts I have seen for a ftse 100 company.

[freedomexpress747] 13/10/2023 22:40

Like it or not, Consumer Duty is a back door price regulator. Hence, groups like Tatton will thrive, SJP will struggle...