Use St James Place for transfer of my Defined Benefit fund ?

gm0

When it comes to sharing alpha with the end consumer retail financial services follow the pirates code.  SJP one gang among many.  Take what you can. Give nothing back.  

Coming in slightly below beta net fees doesn't disturb the ongoing fund management fees goose during plucking.  Keep restructuring the pot (fund mix, appoint/deappoint) - to "improve returns" and coincidentally avoid easy backtesting comparisons. 

Of course "professional ethics" prevents such considerations from affecting fund and portfolio manager behaviour while pursuing returns in your interest as plan members (cough cough)

Joey_Soap

OP, what an incedible piece of good luck you posted here before you did the transfer with SJP. Whatever you do, take a step back and read in the media about SJP, their charges, and the lack of transparency in chrages and everything else they do. There's extensive articles out there in mainstram media about this company and how it operates. Importantly, you must realise that the person you spoke to is not an independant financial advisor. He's a self employed salesman there to sell you ONLY SJP products. SJP cannot offer anything other than SJP products. I urge you to not do this with SJP. If you need an advisor, please, do yourself a favour and find an indepedant financial advisor. You will be glad you did. I really don't want to see the OP posting here in two or three years time about how poor their SJP funds have been and how much it's been costing. There's already too many of those here. Good luck.

JS.

zagfles

ovenglove55 said:

Hi, I have recently had a large transfer value quotation figure from my DB scheme. I am a deferred member, aged 54. I am in discussion with St James Place about handling the transfer, but I am a bit concerned about both their initial charges and the early withdrawal fees. I appreciate there are costs associated with doing a transfer (the SJP adviser quoted 2k for the actuarial valuation alone) but would welcome any comments as to whether this could be done in a lower cost and more flexible way?
In addition, I have around 160k in various other workplace pensions, which SJP are looking to take in transfer. Reading some of the other comments on here they don`t seem to get a good press, but are they really that bad? I am being quoted an AMC of 1.26 % plus fund fees of 0.3-0.7% which I can see is typically higher than say Hargreaves, but SJP say their ongoing advice is where the extra cost comes from . Again any comments please?  

Are you looking for ongoing advice or just to get the DB transferred? HL are typically used by people who don't want/need advice (although they do offer advice services), so comparing them with SJP, or indeed any advice based service, seems a bit odd. Ongoing advice will always cost more, everything else being equal.

ovenglove55

Why choose SJP ?  - I was under the impression that the large majority of IFA`s wont do DB transfers now as the cost of liability insurance has grown prohibitive, presumably due to litigation later on.
I spoke with a friend last year, who had done an approx 700k DB transfer and he said he had a lot of trouble finding an IFA to do his, ended up with one miles away, and it had cost him a lot in fees.
SJP however seem still willing to undertake it.  SJP feel the quoted CETV multiple is higher than would be normally seen, so best to proceed now as another quote next year may well be lower. They also feel that due to current market conditions I should be well placed to gain additionally over the next few years as it recovers.

LHW99

You need to be sure that any advisor (IFA or SJP) will sign the receiving scheme's form to agree they have given advice at the correct level, even if that advice is not to transfer. There are only a few schemes that accept DB transfers now, I believe and fewer if you are an "Insistant client".

It couldn't be that SJP will do this purely because they want your funds to manage, whether its really the best solution for you or not???

coyrls

ovenglove55 said:

Why choose SJP ?  - I was under the impression that the large majority of IFA`s wont do DB transfers now as the cost of liability insurance has grown prohibitive, presumably due to litigation later on.
I spoke with a friend last year, who had done an approx 700k DB transfer and he said he had a lot of trouble finding an IFA to do his, ended up with one miles away, and it had cost him a lot in fees.
SJP however seem still willing to undertake it.  SJP feel the quoted CETV multiple is higher than would be normally seen, so best to proceed now as another quote next year may well be lower. They also feel that due to current market conditions I should be well placed to gain additionally over the next few years as it recovers.

It's a classic sales technique to create pressure to act now.  SJP don't know what your CETV will be in a year's time, neither do they know what the market will do over the next few years.

Silvertabby

cloud_dog said:

ovenglove55 said:

Hi, I have recently had a large transfer value quotation figure from my DB scheme. I am a deferred member, aged 54. I am in discussion with St James Place about handling the transfer, but I am a bit concerned about both their initial charges and the early withdrawal fees. I appreciate there are costs associated with doing a transfer (the SJP adviser quoted 2k for the actuarial valuation alone) but would welcome any comments as to whether this could be done in a lower cost and more flexible way?
In addition, I have around 160k in various other workplace pensions, which SJP are looking to take in transfer. Reading some of the other comments on here they don`t seem to get a good press, but are they really that bad? I am being quoted an AMC of 1.26 % plus fund fees of 0.3-0.7% which I can see is typically higher than say Hargreaves, but SJP say their ongoing advice is where the extra cost comes from . Again any comments please?  

What attracted you to SJP?

Did you receive a letter inviting you to attend a SJP Finance Symposium?  Mr S keeps getting these - God only knows how they got his name and address.  He's told them to take him off the mailing list as he's not interested/already in receipt of his public sector pensions, but still they come...

ovenglove55

I knew the SJP advisor from a previous company we worked at. I am pretty keen to get the DB transfer done, as a draw-down on the 500k DB transferred component alone at age 60 will provide rather more than the 11.5k p/a the DB would currently pay. I do appreciate the latter is guaranteed of course, and mine has a yearly increase, albeit capped at 3% or rpi but it doesn`t provide much flexibility, and, of course, dies with me.
Reading between the lines, it seems to be getting harder and harder to get a transfer done and worried if I leave it another few years it may become virtually impossible.

[Deleted User]

Silvertabby said:

Did you receive a letter inviting you to attend a SJP Finance Symposium?  Mr S keeps getting these - God only knows how they got his name and address.  He's told them to take him off the mailing list as he's not interested/already in receipt of his public sector pensions, but still they come...

Send an email to dpo@sjp.co.uk asking them to delete you and remove your consent for marketing, they will take that seriously as that is the DPOs email

ovenglove55

Just to add, although I worked at a financial services firm previously, it wasn`t in a finance role, so I only have a low level of knowledge in this space. Really appreciate the various comments back from people.