St. James' Place - a review…

[GT3Manthey]

CharlesElliott said:

Just had another complaint against SJP come across my desk - upheld and compensation on the way.

Any information you can share ?

Assuming an issue with fees ?

I’m guessing there must be complaints for various reasons levied at similar companies

[bristoltype603]

Dnlm said:

Those comping SJP to Fundsmith are also doing apples to oranges. Fundsmith is a very good fund with huge US bias which has been a bigger tailwind. SJP are managing your pension etc according to some cookie cutter mandate (plus expensive and not very good).

Buying S&P500 index over the last 10 years gets you 15% annually with 0.2% cost, Nasdaq much more. Fundsmith come in-between.

For some reason most of the providers (SJP, Hargreaves Lansdowne, whatever bank) still bias toward UK equities and the FTSE has been a disaster.

Disaster is the right word the describe the FTSE. Will the situation reverse in the next 10 years I wonder? Asking for a 'friend'.

[bitchstewie]

Back below 7000 again too.

[CharlesElliott]

GT3Manthey said:

Any information you can share ?

Assuming an issue with fees ?

I’m guessing there must be complaints for various reasons levied at similar companies

Many people I know (incl family) have realised that SJP is no good, or at least, it in no way deserves or earns the fees it charges. This complaint was with regard to a request to remove ongoing advice charges as no advice was being given. SJP confirmed that they had not conducted all annual reviews and therefore should not have been taking their ongoing advice commission. They also acknowleged that they had failed to honour a previous commitment to provide an apology payment for an error and would now make that payment.

Yes, there are complaints against every firm but a) SJPs fees are much much higher than the average and b) from my experience, their error rate is also much higher.

[Simpo Two]

CharlesElliott said:

Many people I know (incl family) have realised that SJP is no good, or at least, it in no way deserves or earns the fees it charges. This complaint was with regard to a request to remove ongoing advice charges as no advice was being given. SJP confirmed that they had not conducted all annual reviews and therefore should not have been taking their ongoing advice commission. They also acknowleged that they had failed to honour a previous commitment to provide an apology payment for an error and would now make that payment.

Well done on putting your head over the parapet.

I don't know what level of the industry you're in but I found that in-house 'compliance' officers were only interested in defending their IFAs, not the client, fairness or honesty!

[GT3Manthey]

CharlesElliott said:

Many people I know (incl family) have realised that SJP is no good, or at least, it in no way deserves or earns the fees it charges. This complaint was with regard to a request to remove ongoing advice charges as no advice was being given. SJP confirmed that they had not conducted all annual reviews and therefore should not have been taking their ongoing advice commission. They also acknowleged that they had failed to honour a previous commitment to provide an apology payment for an error and would now make that payment.

Yes, there are complaints against every firm but a) SJPs fees are much much higher than the average and b) from my experience, their error rate is also much higher.

Tks for the update .

I’ve always found that the initial fees are outrageous so consequently I’ve always hammered them down on fees .

Always worth a go

[Enut]

Simpo Two said:

CharlesElliott said:

Many people I know (incl family) have realised that SJP is no good, or at least, it in no way deserves or earns the fees it charges. This complaint was with regard to a request to remove ongoing advice charges as no advice was being given. SJP confirmed that they had not conducted all annual reviews and therefore should not have been taking their ongoing advice commission. They also acknowleged that they had failed to honour a previous commitment to provide an apology payment for an error and would now make that payment.

Well done on putting your head over the parapet.

I don't know what level of the industry you're in but I found that in-house 'compliance' officers were only interested in defending their IFAs, not the client, fairness or honesty!

Can we stop reinforcing the myth that SJP are IFAs? SJP do enough of that themselves, much to the disgust of IFAs and the apparent ignorance of the regulator.

[Halitosis]

GT3Manthey said:

SJP do have 156Bln under management so the largest UK Wealth Manger which makes me a little more comfortable than being with a smaller outfit so maybe safety plays a part over chasing larger gains.

I'm not defending SJP just to be clear, but i do have concerns being with a smaller WM for obvious reasons.

I work in the industry and honestly think SJP are spinning some very tenuous tales on the Assets Under Management (AUM) front by describing themselves as the largest in the UK (by trying to differentiate "Wealth" Manager from "Asset" Manager). SJP don't even make it into the UK's top 10 Asset Managers by AUM. BlackRock Investment Management (UK) had £847 billion according to their 2020 accounts, and I believe L&G and Standard Life/Aberdeen (or whatever they call themselves these days) are even larger.

Regardless, as others have stated, AUM is legally ring-fenced, so if the firm goes under the clients' assets are preserved

[Insurancejon]

If anyone has concerns about any regulated financial company

Just stick their name in here, tick upheld complaint and you can see them

The catch is there are sometimes a lot of different regulated entity for one brand

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decisions-c...

[Simpo Two]

Enut said:

Can we stop reinforcing the myth that SJP are IFAs? SJP do enough of that themselves, much to the disgust of IFAs and the apparent ignorance of the regulator.

I didn't say they were. I was simply commenting on my experience of in-house 'compliance officers'.

[bitchstewie]

Halitosis said:

I work in the industry and honestly think SJP are spinning some very tenuous tales on the Assets Under Management (AUM) front by describing themselves as the largest in the UK (by trying to differentiate "Wealth" Manager from "Asset" Manager). SJP don't even make it into the UK's top 10 Asset Managers by AUM. BlackRock Investment Management (UK) had £847 billion according to their 2020 accounts, and I believe L&G and Standard Life/Aberdeen (or whatever they call themselves these days) are even larger.

Regardless, as others have stated, AUM is legally ring-fenced, so if the firm goes under the clients' assets are preserved

Is it because SJP class it as customers money with them directly v a lot of institutional money i.e. at a legal level my money is with IWEB or whoever even if I've invested it in a BlackRock product?

[Derek Chevalier]

dmahon said:

Im no expert, but I find the whole wealth management world a real head scratcher when Vanguard charge 0.2% on some of their funds.

By the time you have advisor fees, platform fees, fund fees etc, there is no way on gods green earth someone like SJP will consistently beat lumping it in LS80 or LS100 directly with Vanguard. And even if they did, I’d rather lose out on a tiny uplift than let half of the city stick their fingers into my pension.

Can someone explain what I’m missing?

Maybe missing that investor tend to trail the funds they invest in by a large margin (if you believe these studies)

"This was about 1.7 percentage points less than the total returns their fund investments generated over that span"

https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1056151/why-f...
https://www.morningstar.com/lp/mind-the-gap

So maybe an SJP client getting charged ~2% and made to sit on their hands might have returns not too dissimilar to the average DIY investor.

[Derek Chevalier]

bhstewie said:

dmahon said:

Im no expert, but I find the whole wealth management world a real head scratcher when Vanguard charge 0.2% on some of their funds.

By the time you have advisor fees, platform fees, fund fees etc, there is no way on gods green earth someone like SJP will consistently beat lumping it in LS80 or LS100 directly with Vanguard. And even if they did, I’d rather lose out on a tiny uplift than let half of the city stick their fingers into my pension.

Can someone explain what I’m missing?

I think, and happy to be corrected, the extraordinary part is that they charge for putting money in, charge for managing it, and charge if you take it out before an agreed time period.

It's charging either on the way in (ISA) or way out (pension/bond), although I understand not everyone has to pay the "way out" charge if they question it.

[Derek Chevalier]

DonkeyApple said:

Marketing plays a key role at both ends, ultimately, management versus self manage target quite different wealth segments but with the majority of investors sitting between the two clear points of delineation where each product starts or abruptly loses its value.

For the average investor of average wealth, say £200k-£2m ex property the true key isn't financial management but tax management. Self selection of sensible funds, weightings and intelligent management are not the complex elements today. However, tax management is critical because in reality this is where the true returns are made followed by cost control.

I think SJP average client is less than that - £130bn AUM and ~800k clients is <£200k.

https://www.sjp.co.uk/shareholders/our-investment-...
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/investing/arti...

[Derek Chevalier]

GT3Manthey said:

CharlesElliott said:

Many people I know (incl family) have realised that SJP is no good, or at least, it in no way deserves or earns the fees it charges. This complaint was with regard to a request to remove ongoing advice charges as no advice was being given. SJP confirmed that they had not conducted all annual reviews and therefore should not have been taking their ongoing advice commission. They also acknowleged that they had failed to honour a previous commitment to provide an apology payment for an error and would now make that payment.

Yes, there are complaints against every firm but a) SJPs fees are much much higher than the average and b) from my experience, their error rate is also much higher.

Tks for the update .

I’ve always found that the initial fees are outrageous so consequently I’ve always hammered them down on fees .

Always worth a go

That implies you've paid more than one lot of initial fees. Are you being charged for regular/ad-hoc contributions as well as on the initial money invested?

[GT3Manthey]

Derek Chevalier said:

That implies you've paid more than one lot of initial fees. Are you being charged for regular/ad-hoc contributions as well as on the initial money invested?

So my ongoing fees annually are 1.6% for everything including new investments.

I appreciate this is more than others charge however I’ve been happy with my returns and advice/tax advice received.

I appreciate others self manage pensions but I’m too busy to deal with it all plus I’m concerned that a transfer now elsewhere might not work out

[CharlesElliott]

The 1.6% is just one fee though - for advice.

If you are investing in SJP funds, you are also paying higher fees as part of the fund investment than you would be with a lot of other funds, including (in all likelihood) the funds that SJP are investing you in.

The investment industry - not just SJP - has layers and layers of fees and you need to see the whole picture.

[xeny]

GT3Manthey said:

I’m concerned that a transfer now elsewhere might not work out

You could make new contributions somewhere else and at least stop digging?

[GT3Manthey]

CharlesElliott said:

The 1.6% is just one fee though - for advice.

If you are investing in SJP funds, you are also paying higher fees as part of the fund investment than you would be with a lot of other funds, including (in all likelihood) the funds that SJP are investing you in.

The investment industry - not just SJP - has layers and layers of fees and you need to see the whole picture.

I’m only really concerned at the returns net to me regardless of who it is

[xeny]

GT3Manthey said:

I’m only really concerned at the returns net to me regardless of who it is

I always understood that better returns implied taking greater risk (hence the arguments about Fundsmiths concetrated portfolio for example). If you're
happy with the returns with a high cost base, you could lower the cost base, and get the same return at a lower level of risk, or say retire earlier or wealthier?