St. James's Place Share Discussion Threads

[fenners66] 19/3/2024 18:43:56

So I decided to look up the full results to see what FUM and clients they have.

The irony of the front cover " Providing Trusted Financial Advice " then including a provision of £420+ m for
failing to do so.

Have they been reading the Putin playbook - say the opposite of what has been happening...?

[jgoldby] 19/3/2024 14:45:13

You are relying on the assumption that it’s the low value clients that are neglected and that it is limited to a small proportion. My experience was that it could be any client and I made the whistleblower complaint regarding 80% of the clients involved receiving no advice in the period of two years prior to purchase.

Obviously I can’t give details, but there are examples of several thousand pounds a year of income being paid for individual clients who had not been seen since the inception of their plans.

Any attempt to mitigate the issues are SJP are entirely fanciful.

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 14:23:19

They have almost 1 million customers. If the smallest 25% of those customers, who account for maybe 10% of the assets under management, have been neglected that's £15 billion of assets under management due a refund. Those 25% of clients are 250,000 clients so around £60,000 each. So £1,800 over the whole six years each AVERAGE refunds - some of which will then be clawed back from the Advisers.

£15 billion x 0.5% x 6 years = £450 million total.

SJP should have maintained their exclusivity and had a minimum client investment size of £250,000. Instead they have chased volume at the expense of quality and revenue per client.

They need £25bn less under management, 300,000 fewer clients and 1,500 fewer advisers. Thereby massively reducing Head Office and support / admin / compliance staff costs. Two thirds of the business produces 90% of the revenue. Ditch the other third. Improve the service massively for the remaining clients and advisers.

[jakleeds] 19/3/2024 13:25:26

Exactly fenners !! Well said.

[fenners66] 19/3/2024 11:31:22

>dexdringle
19 Mar '24 - 11:24 - 905 of 905
"No SJP adviser would neglect a £300,000 from whom he was receiving £1,400 per annum."

Dex a lot of what you write has a lot of sense in it.

But that comment is ridiculous.
SJP have already admitted that thousands of customers have had their charges reduced and provided £426m for redress because this has been happening.

To be in denial that a customer worth 1400 per annum would be serviced after this evidence is crazy.
How would they get to £426m for 6 years overcharging from a customer base being charged less?

Also even if you know some advisors - you do not know what the other hundreds or thousands of advisors do or don't do !

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 11:24:05

No SJP adviser would neglect a £300,000 from whom he was receiving £1,400 per annum. He might neglect a £70,000 client from whom he receives only £350 per annum....

[jakleeds] 19/3/2024 11:23:57

That’s only the ongoing advice fee. On top of that there are additional charges like , product fees , transaction costs.
On average I think the annual fees come to about 2.2% with SJP

[jakleeds] 19/3/2024 09:28:24

£10,000 over 7 years is an annual advice fee of £1400, so a £300k investment.

It’s the ongoing advice fee . 100%

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 09:15:59

No chance. If it was the advice element only the total fees would have been £40,000 and you don't think The Telegraph would have jumped on that number like a tramp on chips ?

The article talks about 'fees' and doesn't say 'this is for advice only in addition to all other fees he paid...'

£350 a year doesn't make for such a dramatic headline as £10,000.

[jakleeds] 19/3/2024 09:10:22

No. He’s talking about the ongoing advice fee only in my opinion.

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 09:03:29

That's £1,400 a year of which a quarter £350 went to the adviser. The rest was product and investment charges which would happen anyway. He must have only around £70,000 invested.

So he's paid around £2,500* in total over 7 years for 'advice' that he says he hasn't received. The £10,000 figure is disingenuous as that is the total cost of product, investment and advice.

* SJP just need to give this back to him and claim it back from the Adviser. It isn't rocket science.

[jgoldby] 18/3/2024 16:14:56

You start to get the feeling that some participants in this discussion have a corporate drum to bang

[tootsie] 18/3/2024 14:42:01

I wouldn't ever opt for fees. Pay by the hour.

[tootsie] 18/3/2024 13:34:22

SJP get paid by selling you policies/investments. A good IFA offers holistic financial planning and charges hourly fees.

[tootsie] 18/3/2024 13:28:57

Worth remembering SJP are not independent advisers.

[jgoldby] 18/3/2024 11:14:25

The football analogy isn’t that bad, more like club owners though.

[dexdringle] 18/3/2024 09:25:53

There is nothing else. There is only:

1. the poxy 0.5% ongoing fees (many IFAs charge 1%) where a few folks will not have had sufficient contact to justify (and which SJP will, where appropriate, claim this back from the advisers).

2. the exit fees in lieu of initial fees (which is an issue easily fixed by offering those with an exit fee the option to pay a retrospective initial fee instead to cancel that).

That's it. There is nothing else significant and it is all being blown way out of proportion.

I know a few SJP advisers. None of them live like Premier League footballers. I'm sure JGoldby didn't live like a Premier League footballer.

[jakleeds] 18/3/2024 08:38:19

There’s way way too much to sort out here for them to move on to other targets. The fact is that many SJP advisers had it too good for too long. Many lived like premiership footballers. You just don’t see that at other firms.
These should see sub 4 quid this week.