St. James's Place Share Discussion Threads

[dexdringle] 24/3/2024 09:13:06

Well, at least SJP have got ahead of the game and already had their 60% crash.

Not sure in what way I'm deluded. I'm not exactly saying anything controversial.

NY Boy, are you long or short here ?(please don't tell me you are one of those BB timewasters who doesn't have a position)

[ny boy] 24/3/2024 06:01:19

Poor dingle, deluded as ever, just another that has been right royally shafted

Markets are going to have a big correction soon be ready with your tin hat. Buffett has a massive cash war chest ready

[tim 3] 24/3/2024 00:27:20

Exactly.

I stopped looking at broker targets years ago, as you say they just alter them after the event.

About as useful as last weeks lottery numbers!

[dexdringle] 23/3/2024 16:48:17

《《298;《RBC has deviated from other analysts in downgrading SJP from a ‘buy’ recommendation to ‘hold’ and cutting its share price target for the national advice business from 950p per share to 500p》》》》

I love how these 'experts' change their share price forecasts AFTER the event. What about all the people who followed their previous target of £9.50 ?

Then they talk about SJP being a possible bid target without mentioning at what price they think that bid might come. I'm sure if a £7.50 bid appears they'll increase their target to....£7.50 🤣.

Mind you, I can't imagine long term holders being very happy with £7.50 with the shares having been £17 two years ago.

[dexdringle] 21/3/2024 12:12:14

Yes, the SJP succession plan does currently depend on other advisers having the funds (or borrowing) to buy clients of retiring advisers. Mind you, this is also true of any IFA wanting to sell - the buyer has to get the money from somewhere.

SJP may have to lower the sale value of clients to, say, 3 x annual ongoing advice fees rather than 6 x. Or buy them themselves and then pay advisers to service them and those advisers maybe purchasing the clients piecemeal or gradually or whatever once they have a relationship. Or subsidising the interest rate on loans. I'm sure they are considering all sorts of options. Hopefully the new guy has some fresh ideas because Croft was hopeless.

With the share price having recently fallen from £12 to just over £4 (having been £17 two years ago) you have to assume that lots of bad stuff is already in the price. It recently had an enterprise value of £11 a share I think. I can see these getting above £5 again soon. You are right though - at this point they aren't for widows and children.

SJP aren't THAT different to others. If SJP goes bust then the whole sector is in trouble.....

[the millipede] 21/3/2024 11:12:39

Agree with the sentiment of your last paragraph Dex. The biggest risk to the professional lives of financial advisers is the regulator, and this has been true for a long time (since at least the turn of the century with the pension mis-selling review).

The FCA seems to have taken a serious leaf out of the House of Lords playbook in destroying Equitable Life, all for the benefit of customers!

I have wondered about buying in here, of course, but too many firms over the years have gone bust or pulled out of the UK, all because they followed rules at the time that were then retrospectively changed. And this comes on top of higher interest rates potentially undermining SJP’s entire adviser model which relies on new advisers taking out large loans to buy the advice portfolio of those advisers wanting to retire.

In cannot be stressed too much that right now we don’t know whether SJP has any kind of viable future business at all. That doesn’t say, don’t invest. But know the risk IMO.

[dexdringle] 21/3/2024 08:53:19

Being a client of SJP includes signing up to ongoing access to your adviser. SJP do not sell products direct or through non approved third parties. I'm sure SJP clients can call their adviser at any time. And if they can't get in touch with their adviser they can call SJP Head Office.

Yes, their description of charges is awkward. Going forward it won't be after they remove the option for 100% of peoples money to be invested and instead take a charge bite out of it - or charge a separate up front fee. Great 🙄. The charges themselves are easily broken down and are stated as a £ value on annual statements.

The FCA are killing the entire industry now with ludicrous requirements and standards. Many applied retrospectively so the risks are becoming insane. A lot of advice firms will give up well before SJP finally do. The 'advice gap' will become an 'advice chasm'.

[the millipede] 20/3/2024 22:55:04

“Exactly. As an adviser, each client not seen is a missed sale opportunity. Advisers pay fortunes for 'hot leads' so they would be stupid to ignore clients already on the books !”

The missing piece here is “wealth management” a service which has the potential to generate recurring revenue for very little/ no ongoing work. In the industry it is even touted sometimes as exactly this!

Or it might be that advisers have written to these clients to offer ongoing services, had no reply, but charged anyway year after year.

Remember all SJP clients are tied in to SJP investment products with their notoriously opaque charges. And there was little danger of clients moving investments elsewhere because of exit charges (something else that is going under the more customer friendly regime at the FCA).

[dexdringle] 20/3/2024 19:04:44

👍👍

[fenners66] 20/3/2024 18:43:40

As for your Porch comments I'm with you on that

[fenners66] 20/3/2024 18:42:33

Dex,I'm not casting aspertions over the quality of their advice but no one can argue that NOT giving advice IS the opposite of "Providing" anything . Have they ever front covered the accounts with that strapline before?
It's got a sick irony if when they provide such a huge amount in these accounts for their failings , if they chose to use it now.

[dexdringle] 20/3/2024 17:53:41

《《298;《《FT Adviser: The FCA has found 231 firms which have charged for ongoing advice but not delivered.

The issue affected 6,108 clients out of a total of 213,128 (2.9 per cent) who had paid for, but did not receive, an annual review in 2022》》》》299;

So SJP are one. Quilter are another. Who are the other 229 firms 🤔

[dexdringle] 20/3/2024 10:40:25

<<<<<<jakleeds 20 Mar '24 - 07:42 - 919 of 921

The guy said he’d never ever met the adviser, and so he complained. He received all his ongoing advice money back and a hush payment>>>&gt;>

Blimey, if they made him sign an NDA that is serious.

On the other hand, it may just have been a "we're sorry and here's some compensation to cover lost interest etc"

Odd that he had an SJP product if he'd never ever met his SJP adviser.

[jakleeds] 20/3/2024 08:15:22

Read the bits under each of the timelines. There’s loads of info on Google etc

[fenners66] 20/3/2024 08:04:13

"these were spun out of HBOS "

When was that exactly?
As its not happened in my memory !

[jakleeds] 20/3/2024 07:36:54

Any director buying these would be very foolish. I remember when the HBOS share price collapsed from about £12 to £2.50 and Andy Hornby (then HBOS CEO) bought a load of shares.
Although there was a temporary small bounce, it didn’t stop the HBOS price tanking and they nearly went under, until eventually being taken over by Lloyds.
Let’s not forget, these were spun out of HBOS and many of the staff here used to be there.
There may be a temporary bounce but there’s way, way too much bad news still to come out of the closet for there to be anything other than a HBOS style ending.
The next news will be worse than the previous news.
Some of the advisers, who’ve had it so good for so long, will begin contemplating suicide.

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 22:25:17

Would be nice to see some very large director buys. And / or some RNS's of institutional / activist investor accumulations.

Once it turns it will move quickly.

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 22:05:59

Exactly. As an adviser, each client not seen is a missed sale opportunity. Advisers pay fortunes for 'hot leads' so they would be stupid to ignore clients already on the books !

[tim 3] 19/3/2024 22:03:24

Agree especially when you consider these meetings are great opportunities to generate more income from you.

[dexdringle] 19/3/2024 22:00:08

Slim, but not inconceivable.

It is though highly unlikely that more than one in ten SJP clients has had no contact whatsoever from or with their adviser for six years.

When they came up with the £420 million figure SJP already had good adviser / client contact data. Also, the new CEO would want to kitchen sink it and not come back later saying "sorry, I underestimated".

SJP need to leverage and start doing share buybacks at this level. They won't be this cheap for long....

[fenners66] 19/3/2024 18:51:06

Ok so there were £168bn FUM and 958k clients.

So average client size is £175k

Take 0.5% x 175k x6 = 5.25k per client potential

If all claimed it would be just over £5bn

So they are estimating the problem as about 8.5%

So if I knew someone who was
a, a client
b, in that 8.5% the odds would be pretty slim huh ?