Wellesley Wealth Advisory Any Opinions?

[nikaiyo2]

My mum went to an inheritance planning seminar with some of her lady friends last week organized by Wellesley Wealth Advisory, surprise surprise she now has appointment for on of their advisors to visit her at home. She has asked me to come along, i obviously dont mind this at all, but have no idea what they are about.

Are they kosher? I am always very skeptical of any company that organizes seminars like this.

I assume they are going to be like Anglian windows, where there is nothing wrong with the product just it is very costly and SOLD to you.

Anyone got any advice?

[JulianPH]

nikaiyo2 said:

My mum went to an inheritance planning seminar with some of her lady friends last week organized by Wellesley Wealth Advisory, surprise surprise she now has appointment for on of their advisors to visit her at home. She has asked me to come along, i obviously dont mind this at all, but have no idea what they are about.

Are they kosher? I am always very skeptical of any company that organizes seminars like this.

I assume they are going to be like Anglian windows, where there is nothing wrong with the product just it is very costly and SOLD to you.

Anyone got any advice?

They are an appointed rep of St. James's Place. Nothing wrong with that, but expect high fees.

They are also kosher, but are not meeting you Mum because of any concern or love. They are seeing her to sell her something.

Had you posted your question on the sponsored Intelligent Money thread I would have been able to offer you alternatives that did not involve your Mum paying a financial adviser.

As I am responding to your thread I will have to say that there are solicitors who can provide such services for a small one off fee, rather than a cut of the investable assets every single year.

Alternatively, speak to a proper IFA, such as Derek Chevalier.

All the best!

[Mr Pointy]

From the website wellesleywa.co.uk FAQ

"Our typical ongoing charge is less than 2% per annum, this charge includes:

Advice charge
Fund management charge
Dealing costs
IMA
St. James’s Place guarantee

Charges do vary based on your tailored solutions, all of which are detailed during your consultations.

St. James’s Place guarantees the suitability of the advice given by members of the St. James’s Place Partnership when recommending any of the wealth management products and services available from companies in the Group, more details of which are set out on the Group’s website at sjp.co.uk/products."

You might care to do some investigation of other charges St James Place levy, for example any initial & leaving fees. If it were my mother, I'd probably be bolting the door.

[Ginge R]

Does your mum have an IHT issue? There’s nothing wrong with her holding a beauty parade of advisers if that’s the route she wants to go down.

This is just one of many IHT calculators out there, hosted by one of the more credible financial services investment companies mentioned on PH.

https://www.hl.co.uk/tools/calculators/inheritance...

[Henners]

Mr Pointy said:

You might care to do some investigation of other charges St James Place levy, for example any initial & leaving fees. If it were my mother, I'd probably be bolting the door.

I agree with this and would be doing the same.

SJP seem overly keen on lining their own pockets and have built a rep for it.

[ellroy]

SJP are a very good marketing business with some financial advisers attached, who are adept at hiding the true costs of their restricted advice.

Plenty of options for non contingent fee paying Independants available through the likes of vouched for etc

[anonymous-user]

ellroy said:

SJP are a very good marketing business with some financial advisers attached, who are adept at hiding the true costs of their restricted advice.

Plenty of options for non contingent fee paying Independants available through the likes of vouched for etc

Alternatively, SJP provide an excellent service to their clients which is how they manage to make so much money.

Given the growth of my investments in the 20 odd years I've been with them I've never worried about.what the charges are. Call me naive but their advice has meant I could retire at 56 with 7 figures of investments on top of the 1/2 mill property portfolio.

My best mate who has had basically the same career as me but hasn't invested with anyone still lives in rented accommodation and has no pension.

There are, of course, other alternatives but SJP are not the devil incarnate.

[anonymous-user]

I have instinctive, negative reaction to companies who insist on sending a sales person to my home, to explain their proposition. It normally leads to unnecessary costs as they try to leverage their presence in your home to close the sale.

I'd be cancelling the appointment, and ask them to complete the appointment over the phone. If they refuse, you can guess the reason why...

[anonymous-user]

keirik said:

Alternatively, SJP provide an excellent service to their clients which is how they manage to make so much money.

Given the growth of my investments in the 20 odd years I've been with them I've never worried about.what the charges are. Call me naive but their advice has meant I could retire at 56 with 7 figures of investments on top of the 1/2 mill property portfolio.

My best mate who has had basically the same career as me but hasn't invested with anyone still lives in rented accommodation and has no pension.

There are, of course, other alternatives but SJP are not the devil incarnate.

How is your mate relevant if he’s never invested or bought property?

[ellroy]

keirik said:

Alternatively, SJP provide an excellent service to their clients which is how they manage to make so much money.

Given the growth of my investments in the 20 odd years I've been with them I've never worried about.what the charges are. Call me naive but their advice has meant I could retire at 56 with 7 figures of investments on top of the 1/2 mill property portfolio.

My best mate who has had basically the same career as me but hasn't invested with anyone still lives in rented accommodation and has no pension.

There are, of course, other alternatives but SJP are not the devil incarnate.

https://citywire.co.uk/funds-insider/news/which-exposes-st-james-s-places-nonsense-fee-claims/a1036115

5% up front? That’s not something I’d consider remotely reasonable, especially on a restricted sweet of products.

[harmy2010]

keirik said:

Alternatively, SJP provide an excellent service to their clients which is how they manage to make so much money.

Given the growth of my investments in the 20 odd years I've been with them I've never worried about.what the charges are. Call me naive but their advice has meant I could retire at 56 with 7 figures of investments on top of the 1/2 mill property portfolio.

My best mate who has had basically the same career as me but hasn't invested with anyone still lives in rented accommodation and has no pension.

There are, of course, other alternatives but SJP are not the devil incarnate.

Well said.

Its obvious that a lot of people here don't understand the charging structure at SJP. 'expect high charges' was one quote? where is that from? I have actually done my research against both IFA models and SJP models. Example below

100k Pension transfer medium risk

IFA - Normally 3% initial charge ,1% ongoing charge then probably around 0.50 to 1% for the product if they go down the platform route.

So your net investment is £97k with between 1.5% and 2% ongoing charges per annum.

SJP - No initial fee, total cost 1.91% per annum incl a 0.50% adviser charge.

So your 100k investment is fully invested as 100k plus the 1.91% ongoing cost PA. The cost of being fully invested is a early withdrawal charge for the first six years starting at 6% falling 1% per annum. There is a 7.5% annual withdrawal allowance(which rolls up each year that it is unused) so most people never fall foul of the early withdrawal charge.

I will let the wizards here do the maths on the breakeven point between an IFA and SJP.

Also more intricate planning costs more where ever you go.

OP every industry/company has its bad eggs do your research on Wellesley and the people their. If your happy then go for it, if not then find someone else.

[Testaburger]

Talking to a friend while he worked at SJP, he advised me (as a friend) that SJP products weren’t suitable for me. I should mention that these were products in Hong Kong.

The unsuitability was because they required a significant lock-in period. Effectively, their fees are front-loaded. As such, their advisers/reps are paid commissions based on the full investment product tenure. If you leave SJP early, you’ve already paid the fees for the ‘unused’ years.

If I was happy to lock the money away, however, I had no issues with the cost of using them.

[Derek Chevalier]

harmy2010 said:

keirik said:

Alternatively, SJP provide an excellent service to their clients which is how they manage to make so much money.

Given the growth of my investments in the 20 odd years I've been with them I've never worried about.what the charges are. Call me naive but their advice has meant I could retire at 56 with 7 figures of investments on top of the 1/2 mill property portfolio.

My best mate who has had basically the same career as me but hasn't invested with anyone still lives in rented accommodation and has no pension.

There are, of course, other alternatives but SJP are not the devil incarnate.

Well said.

Its obvious that a lot of people here don't understand the charging structure at SJP. 'expect high charges' was one quote? where is that from? I have actually done my research against both IFA models and SJP models. Example below

100k Pension transfer medium risk

IFA - Normally 3% initial charge ,1% ongoing charge then probably around 0.50 to 1% for the product if they go down the platform route.

So your net investment is £97k with between 1.5% and 2% ongoing charges per annum.

SJP - No initial fee, total cost 1.91% per annum incl a 0.50% adviser charge.

So your 100k investment is fully invested as 100k plus the 1.91% ongoing cost PA. The cost of being fully invested is a early withdrawal charge for the first six years starting at 6% falling 1% per annum. There is a 7.5% annual withdrawal allowance(which rolls up each year that it is unused) so most people never fall foul of the early withdrawal charge.

I will let the wizards here do the maths on the breakeven point between an IFA and SJP.

Also more intricate planning costs more where ever you go.

OP every industry/company has its bad eggs do your research on Wellesley and the people their. If your happy then go for it, if not then find someone else.

I support SJP a fair amount when people misunderstand the charging structure so fair play to you for getting it right . What I would add is that I'd want to be double check that the 1.9% included all charges as I think they still quote AMC rather than OCF, and also don't include the transaction costs. I'd estimate around 2.2-2.3%pa all in.

In your example above, and when compared to a traditional IFA that offers little financial planning and just updates the clients once a year on their (active fund) portfolio, then it's not a bad choice, although you'd expect it to be cheaper than an IFA given they have a very restricted offering and don't have to spend time researching the whole of the marketplace. It's becoming tougn provide a decent service at this level and I'd question what you are getting for your £2k pa from either the IFA or the SJP partner.

If your pot is a bit bigger I believe it's worth seeking out a decent financial planner where they will offer a service that adds genuine value rather than the commoditised offering of the two examples above, and given market access is around 50bps for a global portfolio, you have to be very sure the 150bps pa extra is giving you something. Would be good to understand what types of intricate planning you were thinking of that wouldn't be included as part of a decent financial planning offering. I'm not aware of many SJP partners offering financial planning - it's quite tricky with a product based offering.

I'm not that comfortable with SJP's contingent charging model - for the OP's mother it could be that the best course of action is some one off financial planning to determine what her lifetime money requirements are and how much she could genuinely gift/put into trust etc. I don't see how this can work with the SJP model when they only get paid when they sell you something.

For those that say they are happy with SJP (or any other offering) how do you genuinely benchmark (not just in terms of fund performance) against the alternatives out there - it's very tough.

[JulianPH]

harmy2010 said:

Its obvious that a lot of people here don't understand the charging structure at SJP. 'expect high charges' was one quote? where is that from?

I was referring to the charging structure of IFAs in general for IHT planning, when compared to a solicitors fee for doing the work, not SJP specifically.

However, you may want to look at the links below as part of your research:

https://www.sjp.co.uk/products-and-services/charge...

https://www.sjp.co.uk/products-and-services/charge...

https://www.sjp.co.uk/fund-prices/key-information-...

[nikaiyo2]

Thanks for the input guys.

I have heard of SJP, my dad uses them and gets taken on dinners out at stately homes and trips to London, this has always made me think about the margin they have in what they do

My main worry was that this was some kind of scam, so I am more than happy to listen to what he has to say and move on from there.

[Mr Pointy]

nikaiyo2 said:

Thanks for the input guys.

I have heard of SJP, my dad uses them and gets taken on dinners out at stately homes and trips to London, this has always made me think about the margin they have in what they do

My main worry was that this was some kind of scam, so I am more than happy to listen to what he has to say and move on from there.

There's only one person paying for those dinners (including those eaten by the advisors); it's your Dad.

[tighnamara]

harmy2010 said:

Well said.

Its obvious that a lot of people here don't understand the charging structure at SJP. 'expect high charges' was one quote? where is that from? I have actually done my research against both IFA models and SJP models. Example below

100k Pension transfer medium risk

IFA - Normally 3% initial charge ,1% ongoing charge then probably around 0.50 to 1% for the product if they go down the platform route.

So your net investment is £97k with between 1.5% and 2% ongoing charges per annum.

SJP - No initial fee, total cost 1.91% per annum incl a 0.50% adviser charge.

So your 100k investment is fully invested as 100k plus the 1.91% ongoing cost PA. The cost of being fully invested is a early withdrawal charge for the first six years starting at 6% falling 1% per annum. There is a 7.5% annual withdrawal allowance(which rolls up each year that it is unused) so most people never fall foul of the early withdrawal charge.

I will let the wizards here do the maths on the breakeven point between an IFA and SJP.

Also more intricate planning costs more where ever you go.

OP every industry/company has its bad eggs do your research on Wellesley and the people their. If your happy then go for it, if not then find someone else.

You are showing correctly the exit fee reducing from 6% yearly on a lump sum being invested only, BUT any further investments to SJP will be under the same 6% early withdrawal charge.
So someone continually saving (as most would do) will still have a 6% exit fee on a percentage of their fund until they stop investing and allowing the 6 years reduce after last investment payment.

[mikeiow]

tighnamara said:

You are showing correctly the exit fee reducing from 6% yearly on a lump sum being invested only, BUT any further investments to SJP will be under the same 6% early withdrawal charge.
So someone continually saving (as most would do) will still have a 6% exit fee on a percentage of their fund until they stop investing and allowing the 6 years reduce after last investment payment.

Ouch!
& I bet that kind of behaviour, in a nutshell, is what puts many people off seeking financial advice! The fear of hidden “gotchas” down the line.
I guess the answer is to be VERY clear on asking about charges, perhaps ask to record the interview (see how that goes!!!) or at the least, insist on answers to what possible future charges might occur all in writing. In plain English, not pages of small print!

Of course, if they make you a consistent 10-15% pa, then they can buy the nice dinners mentioned previously out of anything over that: happy days!

[Derek Chevalier]

mikeiow said:

& I bet that kind of behaviour, in a nutshell, is what puts many people off seeking financial advice! The fear of hidden “gotchas” down the line.

I've not heard of any fee based financial planner using such a model. Transparency is key

mikeiow said:

In plain English, not pages of small print!

All the costs will/should be in the relevant documentation, but this can easily form 40 pages so you'd need to take time to read it. I explicitly point it costs to my clients.

mikeiow said:

Of course, if they make you a consistent 10-15% pa, then they can buy the nice dinners mentioned previously out of anything over that: happy days!

I've yet to find anyone that has a secret sauce that enables them to consistently beat the market. Be wary of anyone that claims they can.

[mikeiow]

Derek Chevalier said:

I've yet to find anyone that has a secret sauce that enables them to consistently beat the market. Be wary of anyone that claims they can.

I didn't mean literally every year...but if you are with someone who averages 10%+ over a 5-10 period, then I'd say most would be happy with that!