SJP in The Sunday Times

jaybeetoo

Three articles in the Money section today:

“Forgery and mis-selling allegation rocks advice giant St James’s Place”

“James Coney: St James’s Place is a money-making machine – for itself”

“The cost of investing £1m with St James’s Place . . . nearly £1m”

Zanderman

All behind Times firewall but links (to at least read the opening para or two) are:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/money/the-cost-of-investing-1m-with-st-jamess-place-nearly-1m-lrm9d62hg

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/money/james-coney-st-jamess-place-is-a-money-making-machine-for-itself-cwqw8v3f0

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/money/forgery-and-mis-selling-allegation-rocks-advice-giant-st-jamess-place-99q8qbjdf

DrSyn

I wonder how many of those customers who recently on this site claimed to be happy being with SJP:-

(a) Even googled SJP "reviews & complaints" before signing up?

(b) Interviewed other financial advisers than SJP?

(c) Actually understand how much they are really paying them?

(d) Understand the difference between an FA & an IFA?

(e) Think of moving elsewhere?

jaybeetoo

One of the articles also talks about the poor investment returns on some of the SJP funds.

LHW99

I noticed one of the SJP fund mentioned in a Citywire article yesterday.
https://citywire.co.uk/funds-insider/news/the-funds-joining-woodford-at-the-bottom-after-a-torrid-three-months/a1246533?ref=citywire-money-features-list
Out of interest I then tried to have a look at the fund on Morningstar, only to find most the information was either out of date, or actually missing. IMO that would be quite enogh to put me off without anything else.

atush

jaybeetoo wrote: »

Three articles in the Money section today:

“Forgery and mis-selling allegation rocks advice giant St James’s Place”

“James Coney: St James’s Place is a money-making machine – for itself”

“The cost of investing £1m with St James’s Place . . . nearly £1m”

'

Yes, you should avoid posting links to a paid firewall,
Not helpfull

bowlhead99

atush wrote: »

'

Yes, you should avoid posting links to a paid firewall,
Not helpfull

It's helpful to the newspaper though

I'm not sure we should outlaw references to newspapers, subscription websites, pay TV channels etc. Some people can access them.

On their own, the articles are probably not worth the price of admission, but if you're a regular reader of the Money or Business section it makes a change from the huge number of articles about Woodford they've been running for the last couple of months...

fred246

With SJP you have to pay the spiv and a FTSE100 company, with an IFA you just pay the spiv so on average SJPs costs should be more. Mis-selling has always been prevalent in financial advice and I would expect forging a signature or two pretty normal. Financial advisers have set themselves up to line their own pockets. That's the same for all businesses but most are a bit less blatant than financial advisers.

Zanderman

atush wrote: »

'

Yes, you should avoid posting links to a paid firewall,
Not helpfull

The OP didn't post links. They just mentioned the articles existed.

I posted links, pointing out they were behind the paywall.

The OP did a good service by raising awareness of the articles - would you rather they didn't??

I, in my view, helped, by posting links. Which will work for anyone who does pay for Times access (don't assume everyone on here doesn't!) and will also work for a quid or two for anyone wanting to take a temporary access. And, for those (like me) who don't subscribe and won't pay for a trial, does still help by helping see the articles are actually real and that fact alone gives support and credibility to the report. Even if you don't see the detail.

This is NOT 'not helpful'.

Seabee42

Lets be honest the later two articles are not really news. There are other companies of a similar vein but they are an easy target. I am still surprised people who invest a lot of money do not do even simple google checks but if they are happy in their ignorance it is their choice.


The other article though fits with a case we had with them where they tried to insist an electronic signature was the real members signature when it was so obviously not. Clearly their fees are not enough!

aberlyfid_2000

the gist of the articles are that:

SJP funds are very similar to other funds in terms of holdings but with much higher charges...
....but charges are still competitive vis-a-vis other similar wealth managers
SJP is a network of "independant" firms advisors, and one or more of them have committed fraud, allegedly, by faking signatures and letters