F A wants to move me to St. James's Place fund management

gadgetmind

Intrepid2 wrote: »

Would you prefer a Ford or a Ferrari?

Bad analogy.

But FWIW the salesman at SJP I used (or who used me, to be more accurate) owned a Ferrari F40, a Lambourghini Countach, an Aston Martin DB6 and an Audi A8.

You seem to be determined to slag off IFAs who know massively more about asset allocation, personal finance, taxation, etc. than "your man in the street" and I very much doubt your average SJP salesman can come anywhere close.

Remember that it only takes one company to destroy a reputation.

Well, they messed up my pension transfer to such an extent that they ended up having to send me a cheque for £700 *and* pay the tax penalty on it on my behalf.

I won't say that SJP have destroyed their own reputation but I wouldn't disagree with "irredeemably tarnished".

addedvaluebob

What complete nonsense I can only assume you work for SJP or have swallowed their sales patter. Taking 5% of a clients money to invest in broadly the same investment is never worth the money.

Linton

Intrepid2 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish. I have investments with SJP and they adopt a very sophisticated approach to fund management that a normal man on the street (IFA) could never match. Plus they only use fund managers from companies who they can trust and know have a solid reputation. Remember that it only takes one company to destroy a reputation. Plus SJP have a much stronger and better reputation that most other companies that provide advice in the UK. Yes brochures and all that are glossy, but when you compare the quality to the likes of Zurich, L&G, Aviva etc. they are streets ahead. Would you prefer a Ford or a Ferrari?

In real life a Ford almost all of the time. Ferraris are much more expensive to run, not so easy to park in Morrison's carpark and wont carry the luggage needed to go on holiday.

Most people would find a Ferrari a white elephant.

Most investors dont have the wealth to need or justify a sophisticated approach to fund management. There is plenty of choice of funds from reputable suppliers, the main skill needed is to choose the appropriate funds for the circumstances. If one has the skill to do this oneself, fine, otherwise a local IFA should be more than able to provide it.

jimjames

Intrepid2 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish. I have investments with SJP and they adopt a very sophisticated approach to fund management that a normal man on the street (IFA) could never match. Plus they only use fund managers from companies who they can trust and know have a solid reputation. . Would you prefer a Ford or a Ferrari?

I think you've been taken in by their marketing.

Ford or Ferrari is probably an accurate analogy. If you go to a Ferrari garage to buy a car you wouldn't expect them to tell you the car that really meets your needs is next door at the Ford garage; they will sell you what they can from their range. Both get from a to b with 4 wheels but one is vastly more expensive and impractical than the other. Much the same as sjp being vastly more expensive than an IFA that meets needs or diy that does the same.

I can't understand why anyone would buy from a tied adviser when there are others that offer the whole of the market.

Your_Hero

Intrepid2 wrote: »

So you are saying that a man on the street (IFA) can do a better job than one of the best Investment Consultancy Firms in the world. Plus the TER that you pay with SJP is similar to most providers that provide advice. I have never heard so much rubbish in my life. I really hope he doesn't listen to your comments.

Better job in terms of giving better and independent advice, almost certainly.

At first, I thought that surely you don't mean better investment returns, because true advisers don't guarantee anything like that. But then I read this:

What a load of rubbish. I have investments with SJP and they adopt a very sophisticated approach to fund management that a normal man on the street (IFA) could never match. Plus they only use fund managers from companies who they can trust and know have a solid reputation

This is a typical SJP spiel. The only reason I can think of why you are extremely defensive on this subject is because you have somewhat strong association with SJP, perhaps you're an 'adviser' yourself.

However, this does not change the fact that SJP are well known to be expensive in the industry and still have investment products that have exit penalties. They act as if RDR never even happened. SJP may be right for some people, but more often than not, they do not give advice, but sell only SJP products otherwise how else do they get paid?

Aegis

Intrepid2 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish. I have investments with SJP and they adopt a very sophisticated approach to fund management that a normal man on the street (IFA) could never match.

No they don't. SJP do nothing special with their research, they just take existing propositions from the wider market and rebrand them as their own funds. There might be a few differences, but if you compare the long term performance of the SJP Equity Income fund to the Invesco Perpetual Income fund you'll see a very high correlation. The reason for this is that SJP simply hired Neil Woodford to run a private fund for them on much the same basis as his highly successful mainstream fund.

I dare say I could match an SJP portfolio for performance without too much trouble (though obviously performance cannot be guaranteed) and if you wanted lower charges I could wipe the floor with them in very short order.

Plus SJP have a much stronger and better reputation that most other companies that provide advice in the UK.

Not amongst advisers. Even amongst the general population I imagine that the majority of people haven't heard of them. In any case, reputation can be manipulated through marketing, and SJP have a very slick marketing operation.

Yes brochures and all that are glossy, but when you compare the quality to the likes of Zurich, L&G, Aviva etc. they are streets ahead. Would you prefer a Ford or a Ferrari?

Not really comparing like for like here at all. SJP are a fund management and tied sales outfit, while Zurich, L&G and Aviva are product providers catering to a very wide variety of clients and third-party advisers with a huge range of products, some of which are good and some of which are less so. A good adviser can source the right product from the right provider, while a tied salesman has to use what his company tells him to use regardless of how good the product actually is.

By way of illustration, I've put a number of clients over the last few years into offshore bonds and drawdown pensions. None of these clients would have any penalties if they chose to surrender their policies, even in the very early years. SJP, on the other hand, tie their clients in with early exit penalties for anything up to six years, at least from the most recent reports of theirs that I've seen. This is likely because they still pay their salesforce very large commissions up front and need to make sure that they get their money's worth out of the clients before they leave. I say "likely" because it's really difficult to establish this from their reports, even though following the Retail Distribution Review there's supposed to be a clear separation between product costs, investment costs and adviser costs. SJP have elected to use their "vertically integrated" status to skip this altogether (again, based on the few reports by SJP partners I've seen since RDR was implemented).

gadgetmind

http://citywire.co.uk/money/adviser-banned-after-safe-as-houses-investments-go-bust/a772833

Adviser banned after 'safe as houses' investments go bust

An adviser from the St James's Place sales force is banned after telling clients to invest in businesses he ran that later fell into liquidation.

JBond007

Personally, I would not touch SJP with a barge poll.

In fact, I would extend this to quite a few Financial Advisors as well as they seem very content in providing limited to no advice at all - preferring to just take a good proportion of their clients cash...!

nelle96

I can only speak from personal experience. I have used SJP for about 11 years and have multiple investments, my bank and my mortgage with them. I can honestly say I've always found them superb. For example - my mortgage is a tracker, 0.25% above base with no lower limit. I'd been talking about changing mortgages and my advisor rang me to say SJP were closing this product on that day and advised me to take it up. The best advice I ever got. On a £450k IO mortgage I've been paying about £200 a month for years. On a couple of occasions I've had fraudulent activity on my bank account and SJP have sorted in instantly and without question, repaying the stolen money on the day reported. And when my dad died 6 years ago and left £10k to my daughter I invested it a trust fund with SJP and it's now worth £21k without any further payments into it - a return I'm very happy with. We also have our ISAs and other bonds with them, all of which have performed well and our advisor regularly comes to see us and makes suggestions on tweaks to the investments to give us a better return. I guess it's partly down to the local advisor but I would recommend SJP to anyone.

dunstonh

For example - my mortgage is a tracker, 0.25% above base with no lower limit. I'd been talking about changing mortgages and my advisor rang me to say SJP were closing this product on that day and advised me to take it up. The best advice I ever got.

And how would that be different to any other mortgage broker? (noting that mortgage advice is falls under a different classification to investment business and does not involve SJP products)

On a couple of occasions I've had fraudulent activity on my bank account and SJP have sorted in instantly and without question, repaying the stolen money on the day reported.

How would SJP sort fraudulent activity on a bank account that they do not have any control over?

And when my dad died 6 years ago and left £10k to my daughter I invested it a trust fund with SJP and it's now worth £21k without any further payments into it - a return I'm very happy with.

Given that it would be just after the credit crunch crash, that is more down to lucky timing.

We also have our ISAs and other bonds with them, all of which have performed well and our advisor regularly comes to see us and makes suggestions on tweaks to the investments to give us a better return. I guess it's partly down to the local advisor but I would recommend SJP to anyone.

This is all very well and good and the service you get is replicated nationwide with independents at lower cost. You are right, it is the individual that matters most.

SJP plus points are that their marketing and presentation is very slick and professional. However, the negative is that they are damned expensive and their offering is limited