St James Place (Wealth Management)

twc58

I am just about to start a Pension plan with the above company - does anyone have any views on the company either good and bad?
Would love to hear your comments.
Thanks

dunstonh

I am just about to start a Pension plan with the above company - does anyone have any views on the company either good and bad?

An IFA can walk all over them.

I did a pension transfer away from SJP last year and the difference in charges over the term increased the fund by over £300,000. IFAs love coming across SJP clients as they know they can arrange cheaper and the whole of market options beat the limited panel SJP offer.

Loughton_Monkey

One of the worst places you can go. Get out quick while you can.

Annisele

To be fair my experience with them has been limited (I just helped a friend to surrender a couple of investments with them) but their customer service in that one case was *awful*.

SeniorSam

You will be limited to the funds in which you can invest and I understand that charges are higher. St James Place are not Independent Financial Advisers, even though they sometimes seem to portray that to clients. Find a reliable IFA that specialises in pension work, but also get several quotes for ongoing charges from IFA's and compare them before taking action.

Sam

martin81_2

Hi,

I have been working in financial services for sometime and know a little about how they work. I had a friend who went to work for st.james place and dealt with them myself when trying to help my father arrange for his retirement finances.

I can tell you the following:

1. Fees are extremly high. they not only charge you a % of your investment, but also flat fee for arranging and also a commision based introduction package. The means you will need a lot of money £1m+ to really justify the marginally higher rates they claim to be able to offer.
2. I had a look at the risk profile (am a risk guy) of the investments on offer. Typically at retirment age, one should be looking for a blend that shys away from risk. This would indicate taking on no more than a 5% risk to allow measures to be taken for inflation. St.James offer more than this but typically their risk profile tends look like 8%.

on basis of this, I would not recommend them.

gadgetmind

twc58 wrote: »

I am just about to start a Pension plan with the above company - does anyone have any views on the company either good and bad?

When young and green, I did life insurance, ISAs (well, PEPs back then) and pensions with them.

As a result, I can back what everyone else says. Walk away and stop picking up the 'phone. All the underlying investments will be exactly the same (ignore their fancy graphs showing how good they are) but their fees will drain off huge chunks of *your* money.

As SJP are interested, I guess it's a larger than average pension, so consider going to an IFA and even consider paying a fee rather than going the commission route.