Saint James's Place

cloud_dog

But, Oooooh those leaflets are soooo pretty

Voyager2002

SweatyBald wrote: »

To Woody: Whatever mate. These are my experiences only. I'm posting here to see if anyone else has had a good experience, or has a good opinion, or if there are any other angles I'm missing.

My experience with SJP was reasonably positive: my late father used them, and as executor of his estate I had to manage the investments and decide what do to with them. Obviously my father had *blown* a lot of money on the initial charges, then more when he needed to withdraw some funds after a few years for a house purchase and needed to pay exit charges. These fees, along with the relatively higher management charges, meant that the eventual returns from the investments were lower than they would have been had he made comparable investments with a decent IFA or even by himself. Having said that, he had a pretty good portfolio that did the job, and of course had received attentive and polite service.

I needed to decide whether to leave the investments with SJP or move them elsewhere. I was annoyed that the website and printed material did not give complete information about charges, but when I posed specific questions I was given clear and complete information. On the basis of that information I decided to leave SJP.

In sum: I think that the 'product' is pretty good, but comes at a very high cost. That might be suitable for someone who is unable or unwilling to find the time and energy to choose and to visit a decent IFA (SJP will come to you), but most people would prefer to spend less.

After reading this thread, it seems clear to me that (i) SweatyBald does not have the time nor the background to choose and manage investments for himself, and so a service like SJP makes sense for him; but (ii) his lack of background means that he does not appreciate how much he is paying for the service.

jsinc

SweatyBald wrote: »

Thanks for those links jsinc.

I am a Which member and I read that and also the yodel piece.
I got charged a entrance fee of 5% when I made investments for the first 2 years, after which I asked for them to be removed conditional on further investment, so I don't get that now.
The funds I have are not top quartile for sure, but they are top half. I have 70% of my investment in four funds, US Equity, UK Equity, small Asia and Europe. I get this basis Citywire rather than just the FE reports I get sent.
I don't feel I've been misled... but I wonder if you don't ask, you don't get told? An old sales technique indeed.And I wonder how many people negotiate the fees before signing?

Clearly a lot of people feel they have been over-sold, maybe correctly.

Why are they so succesful in the face of negative pubilicity, or are there just as many customers happy that don't complain? I know only two other people who use them, the guy who recommended me, and another colleague at work, but we all seem happy.
I also wonder if they play to a brand, that is to make people "feel" wealthy by using them, and they are too embarassed to challenge things for fear of looking "cheap"?
Being half Scottish and half Yorkshire, you can't make me feel cheap.

Have you assessed portfolio returns and charges etc vs. comparables - from day 1 to now to retirement forecast? I think you'd be unpleasantly surprised at the result.

I don't think it's sensible to save a little free time (or even IFA assessment £) by probably paying away a lot of lifetime work and future income on over charging and under performance. But whether or not we agree, I hope we both have adequate understanding and capability to make our own informed decisions. Firms like SJP are successful because many perhaps most don't.

Albermarle

I am willing to give Baldy the "benefit of doubt" on being a genuine SJP customer.

I would agree with this.

SweatyBald

Thank you for that Voyager, I can't disagree with your summary.
What I need to work out, is how much can I save by changing - given the time and effort that it will incur, and my current total lack of the former.
Due to the market I work in, I am working a lot of hours and making quite a lot of money, and I have to make hay while the sun shines. So I can't ignore that factor.

I think I need to do two things:

I will re-check the returns on those funds, because if the numbers are right and the funds have outperformed my other two pensions net of fees over 5 years (accounting for the fact that they are slightly lower risk) then my rational head says to move them.
What is telling me not to is the volume of bad press (credible, not forum ranters) and if that is just down to headlines from a people who've dealt with poor quality partners, then it's not a reason to ignore the first.
I'm not ashamed to say I have some loyalty, because the original investment package the made for me saved me an absolute fortune in tax. If I'd had to do that myself I would have i) got it wrong, or ii) spent days collating all the information and missed the deadlines.

SweatyBald

So what would happen if I take my reports, returns etc to an IFA and ask him to give me an opinion?

1. He/she is going to think I won't buy anything anyway so why would they give me time?
2. They would just give me a hard sell as well, and repeat a lot of the above to get my business.
Could I pay an IFA a fee to give me a unbiased view on the returns?
My current company has an IFA service and you get 1 hour's free advice if you want it. I could use that, although I doubt they would like it.

Aegis

9% over 5 years is pretty terrible if you're in risky assets (I believe you mentioned 4 equity funds earlier). 9% over five years is 1.7% a year, barely above cash. If you meant 9% per year (i.e. 54% total) then that's considerably better, but that implies a high level of risk indeed rather than the medium you mentioned earlier. Certainly a blend of 70% in four equity funds (particularly the fact that the SJP UK equity fund seems to have done poorly, meaning your allocation to Global, Asia and US is presumably much higher than the UK fund) and 30% in other stuff isn't in line with what I think Medium Risk ought to look like.



Realistically you ought to be looking at some sort of volatility measure over that 5 year period to compare like for like. If you can get the maximum drawdown of your fund instead, that's a better measure of risk in my view, but most firms can easily supply volatility measures while struggling with other indicators.


I'm not especially enamoured with SJP, as I don't like any investment solution where you as a client cannot easily be moved from an underperforming or suddenly riskier investment, while an IFA has all retail funds operating in the UK to choose from.

DrSyn

Out of interest :-

1. Just how many other IFA's did you see before giving SJP your business?

2. If SJP was the only one, why didn't you interview other IFA's?

SweatyBald

I spoke to three or four on the phone, but honestly was not that impressed, and I didn't get a good feeling. One of them (I can't remember the name, so I won't say) tried to fix a date and said "Remember to bring your cheque book" so my language got quite colourful at that point.

I went with SJ because they were put onto me by a friend. His investment policy (which is like my own) was to limit downside. This was back in 2013 and he was really happy with the way they had navigated the GFC with his funds. My position was medium risk, but with an emphasis on capital protection, and I felt they understood this with their advice. So after a few bad calls, and with time marching on, I took the decision to proceed.

SonOf

You mention 1.4% annual charges. Is that the AMC or is it the OCF, TC and Incidental charges?

As I mentioned before, SJP reps have form for quoting the AMC only. 1.4% sounds more in line with AMC than the OCF, plus Transaction charges plus incidental charges.

e.g. AMC on SJP Balanced Managed is 1.28% but the OCF is 1.68% and 0.12% transaction charges