Have you heard of St James's Place

EdInvestor

Look a bit higher and you find Sir Mark Weinberg, founder of the leading rip-off unit-linked assurers in the UK.

Sir Mark Weinberg, who had already succeeded in growing financial houses Abbey Life and Hambro Life (Allied Dunbar), was St. James's Place and J. Rothschild Group co-chair. Mike Wilson, former CEO of Hambro, was chief executive of J. Rothschild Assurance.

As well as bringing in new blood to manage the financial operations, Rothschild shared control of the assets. Institutional Investor reported, "Though Jacob remains the biggest shareholder in public companies Rothschild Investment Trust (RIT) and St. James's Place Capital, which owns 40% of RIT, he says his colleagues have significant equity stakes in the various businesses. For example, Weinberg has 'a very significant equity stake' in J. Rothschild Assurance."

Still coining it today through "capital and accumulation units" - as anyone knows who tries to exit Allied Crowbar and discovers they have to pay ALL the charges - right up to maturity - as an exit penalty. :mad:

Salesmen for this type of company - Equitable Life was similar - prey on people's need for self respect, their need to feel successful and their greed.They talk about "wealthy blue chip clients". They drive BMWs, wear pinstripe suits, look prosperous.They normally talk gobbledegook, much of it about things like inheritance tax ( the sort of thing that supposedly bothers rich people).

They try and con gullible people into thinking that having a lump sum of 150k makes them wealthy. [This only buys an income of 7,500 a year, which ain't a lot, is it?]

Then they fleece them. And sadly, the victims are usually so embarrassed, they have nothing to say.

dunstonh

dh, where did you get this from? Allied Dunbar were ultimately taken over by Zurich - no connection with SJP AFAIK.

In addition to what CM said, a number of dunbar firms became SJP.

Its the old AD process and techniques in a new name.

cheerfulcat

OK, it's clear now, thanks.

Salesmen for this type of company - Equitable Life was similar - prey on people's need for self respect, their need to feel successful and their greed.They talk about "wealthy blue chip clients". They drive BMWs, wear pinstripe suits, look prosperous.They normally talk gobbledegook, much of it about things like inheritance tax ( the sort of thing that supposedly bothers rich people).

Ed, you may remember that in the interests of research for this very board I rang SJP a while ago; it did strike me that the " advisor " I spoke to ( several times, he was very persistent ) was on the smarmy side!

EdInvestor

Yes, I wonder if a few of the old Equitable reps may have crossed over - they are both owned/run by Halifax now, of course.

There was some fascinating evidence given recently by an ex Equitable salesman to the EU inquiry. He explains the "military style" culture, the targeting of vic.. errr clients, the way they sold multiple products to each one ( necessary if the company was to survive.)

Quite scary actually.

Perhaps SJP is trying to fill the gap in the market left by Equitable's demise? "St James's Place" has exactly the right kind of ring to it, don't you think?

Beware.

Chrismaths

http://www.sjpc.co.uk/ppt/sjpc-interim-06.ppt

Have a read of this - it's the presentation they gave relating to their interim results. There are some nice touches in there - that advisers are motivated entirely by sales commissions, and have no access to ongoing servicing commission until they retire, so they are on a sales treadmill.

whiteflag_3

Chrismaths wrote:

http://www.sjpc.co.uk/ppt/sjpc-interim-06.ppt

Have a read of this - it's the presentation they gave relating to their interim results. There are some nice touches in there - that advisers are motivated entirely by sales commissions, and have no access to ongoing servicing commission until they retire, so they are on a sales treadmill.

Great link!

Theres a phrase in this part of the world that I think sums up SJP

"FUR COAT AND NAY KNICKERS":D

dunstonh

I did get a phone call from one of their recruiters about 3 months ago who I quickly turned down. When he asked why, I said that I valued being independent and that I have a significant trail/renewal income which would be lost. His response was that I could re-write all the business when I was with them and earn from it again. It didnt matter to them that my clients would have been put in a worse position if I was to do that.

With SJP its all about commission and sales. Not best advice.

barak

coatescastle wrote:

We are on the verge of investing £150,000 with a firm called St James's Place. Has anybody heard of them or had dealings with them. I felt fine with the company, but someone in our town said how much do we know about them, and apart from the FSA, we personally know nothing.

Any help would be appreciated.

They are certainly expensive. You should get some alternative advice from two or three IFAs to see what they suggest.

EdInvestor

Chrismaths wrote:

http://www.sjpc.co.uk/ppt/sjpc-interim-06.ppt

Have a read of this - it's the presentation they gave relating to their interim results. There are some nice touches in there

One of the early pages says something like

No With profits
No GARs
No solvency assets invested in equities
NO split caps
No precipice bonds
etc etc

Sounds as though their target market is people who've already been ripped off coming round for a second time.

You'd laugh if it wasn't so pathetically likely to be a winnning strategy.

There are some people who just can't be helped.

Tiggs_2

I have just given up my IFA status for my company to work as an SJP rep so happy to answer any questions.

I'm not going to trip of a string of sales patter (SJP are good enough at that already) but would say the following.....

SJP nowadays are quite different to how they were 5+ years ago. My company is still my company, run by me with my staff and branded with my logo and my brand. The only difference is i sell SJP solutions. My point is, you can moan about the products where its appropriate (although in my market the products are fine).....but you cant moan about the advisers, because they are all individuals - last month i was a highly skilled IHT specalist with 10+ years in that field and an approcah to business that was built around long term relationships and excellent advice which, of course, leads to a profitable business for me (and no clients want to see my business un-profitable).....next month i will be NO different.

Tiggs


ps- just to clarify.....where the adviser is a tool you can, of course, moan about him! My point is that there are some pretty crappy IFAs and some pretty crappy SJP Partners - you cant, therefore, say that anyone is good or bad based on their working model.


"They stitched my mum up with her IHT planning and then wanted to charge her again to fix it."

Be interested in how they did that...wasn't it via a Double Trust - i know they did plenty of those prior to Pre OWned Asset tax, but then so did i as an IFA......it wasnt the Double Trust that stiched people up.....it was the Goverment!