SJP 13 January at 10:11AM in Pensions, annuities & retirement planning 10 replies 573 views

Bramhopewarrior

My wife and I hold private pensions with SJP along with small ones for our children, Ive always gone along with them as we were introduced by father in law to his advisor and have always trusted his advice..However over the last six years reading more about them Ive grown more and more restless with holding our money with them. Mainly being the high charges etc and reading some of the horror stories online. What's tipped me into posting is after six years with them we've barely broke even as of now.

Im a novice in doing it myself so looking for recommendations as to what best to do moving forward?

cfw1994

I would look up Independant Financial Advisors, if I were you.
SJP do have punitive exit fees, if reports are to be believed…so you may need the new IFA to help you figure out how to move: it might be you pause things with SJP and invest new stuff with NewIFA.

Obviously a number here (me included) manage our own finances….but if you are not confident, I imagine a proper IFA might be your way forward - emphasis on the ‘I’ 😉


eta - I see your only other post here was almost 6 years ago…I guess you ignored the advice then (no replies to the people who tried to help you then).  Will this thread remain similarly unanswered?  Please report back!

NlghtOwl

Don’t decide based on other people’s views, if you are happy with the advice and the relationship and you’re on the right path, then perhaps accept you are paying extra for the peace of mind.  If after looking into things you question investments then ask them to explain what you are invested in and why. You should not abdicate managing your money to an advisor, they should inform and advise your decisions. If you need ongoing support then moving to a new advisor could cost you in moving investments if they provide a managed service. Good luck 

artyboy

NlghtOwl said:

Don’t decide based on other people’s views, if you are happy with the advice and the relationship and you’re on the right path, then perhaps accept you are paying extra for the peace of mind.  If after looking into things you question investments then ask them to explain what you are invested in and why. You should not abdicate managing your money to an advisor, they should inform and advise your decisions. If you need ongoing support then moving to a new advisor could cost you in moving investments if they provide a managed service. Good luck 

It sounds like the OP is not happy in their own right given they are barely breaking even over a significant number of years. No doubt SJPs fees play a material part in this...

No one is suggesting 'abdicating' money management to an advisor, and to me that sounds like a rather odd choice of wording. But you would (by definition) expect to get better information and advice from an IFA than from those tied sales managers at SJP - however slick and convincing their patter might be.

dunstonh

 Ive always gone along with them as we were introduced by father in law to his advisor and have always trusted his advice

SJP are amongst the highest cost advisers in the country.  However, they provide a lot of glossy material and their sales reps tend to drop in a lot and that level of contact comes across as good service.  They also tend to get in with the family.

What's tipped me into posting is after six years with them we've barely broke even as of now.

2022 did see people drop back to 2018/19 levels (although recovering since).  2018 was the last negative year before 2022.  However, 2020 had a major drop in it as well.      Often you can break an economic cycle into 5 year chunks.  a 5 year chunk of near-continuous high growth. a 5 year chunk of growth but not as strong and little more volatile and a 5 year chunk that is highly volatile and prone to periods of high losses.     We have had the latter.

Barely breaking even after 6 years is not good.  If you had said 3-4 years then it is more in line with expectation.

Im a novice in doing it myself so looking for recommendations as to what best to do moving forward?

The choice should always be to either use an IFA or DIY.    Not an FA, which is what you are currently doing.   A general rule of thumb is to avoid firms with wealth management in their name or tagline (this includes IFAs as well as FAs as some IFAs run a similar model as SJP albeit using whole of market providers/investments).

Bramhopewarrior

cfw1994 said:

I would look up Independant Financial Advisors, if I were you.
SJP do have punitive exit fees, if reports are to be believed…so you may need the new IFA to help you figure out how to move: it might be you pause things with SJP and invest new stuff with NewIFA.

Obviously a number here (me included) manage our own finances….but if you are not confident, I imagine a proper IFA might be your way forward - emphasis on the ‘I’ 😉


eta - I see your only other post here was almost 6 years ago…I guess you ignored the advice then (no replies to the people who tried to help you then).  Will this thread remain similarly unanswered?  Please report back!

Afternoon and cheers for the response. In truth I'd forgotten I'd posted.

I'd love to manage my own finances in the respect of investments I guess its a case of educating myself.

The exit fees are an issue my Father in law tried taking out a chunk of his pension (tax free) and the exit fee was galling to say the least.

We've stopped investing any further in our funds as the more we are putting in the more its costing when we do withdraw.

dunstonh

The exit fees are an issue my Father in law tried taking out a chunk of his pension (tax free) and the exit fee was galling to say the least.

For reference, only tied salesforces can offer products with exit charges the way SJP do.  It cannot happen with pensions arranged by IFAs.   You wouldnt expect exit charges on DIY either.

Albermarle

Bramhopewarrior said:

cfw1994 said:

I would look up Independant Financial Advisors, if I were you.
SJP do have punitive exit fees, if reports are to be believed…so you may need the new IFA to help you figure out how to move: it might be you pause things with SJP and invest new stuff with NewIFA.

Obviously a number here (me included) manage our own finances….but if you are not confident, I imagine a proper IFA might be your way forward - emphasis on the ‘I’ 😉


eta - I see your only other post here was almost 6 years ago…I guess you ignored the advice then (no replies to the people who tried to help you then).  Will this thread remain similarly unanswered?  Please report back!

Afternoon and cheers for the response. In truth I'd forgotten I'd posted.

I'd love to manage my own finances in the respect of investments I guess its a case of educating myself.

The exit fees are an issue my Father in law tried taking out a chunk of his pension (tax free) and the exit fee was galling to say the least.

We've stopped investing any further in our funds as the more we are putting in the more its costing when we do withdraw.

At least one DIY platform, will pay your exit fees if you transfer to them ( up to a limit) Also various platforms from time to time will offer cashback for transferring to them. So that could maybe take the sting out of SJP exit fees.

Somebody

Whenever I hear SJP, it makes my blood boil!

They target professional services firms and in my youth I naively signed up to a personal pension with them.  This was in offices in Mayfair.  Their spin was "yeah, the charges are high but so are the investment returns".  Then soon after they signed me up for a pension mortgage, saying that the TFLS would repay the capital on my mortgage.  I had an endowment mortgage at the time and on the endowment they were silent. 

I then moved into industry with a company which had DB pension provision, and SJP signed me up for FSAVC.  The DB pension scheme questioned the suitability as I would be far better in the Company AVC.  I questioned this with SJP, and, long story short, the SJP partner disappeared, and I had to go the the FOS to get redress against SJP, which I got in the form of additional units to the SJP pensions as my company scheme would not accept retrospective AVCs.  I then transferred the SJP schemes to a SIPP.

bostonerimus

Take some time to learn the basics of investing and the UKs saving, pensions and investing landscape. There are plenty of online guides and really it only takes a couple of hours to get the basics down and that’s really all you need to assess SJP, and IFA or DIY. There are multi-asset and index funds that you can use to construct an inexpensive and effective portfolio and platforms like H&L, Vanguard etc the give you the accounts and tools you need. 

But I believe that fixed costs and fees are one of the biggest drags on portfolio performance.

ex-pat_scot

Somebody said:

Whenever I hear SJP, it makes my blood boil!

They target professional services firms and in my youth I naively signed up to a personal pension with them.  This was in offices in Mayfair.  Their spin was "yeah, the charges are high but so are the investment returns".  

Yeah - my experience too.
Sensible business model: target the professional services firms, as that's where the wealthy (high income) people congregate.
They tried to get me to sign up to FSAVC in the 90s a few times, then about a decade ago to move my pension provision to them. I was cautious and shied away thankfully.
My parents are long-standing customers though, and I'm not sure they fully understand the charging / penalty structures in place. It's not really my place to voice my opinion though, as I'm not fully aware of the relationship / costs etc.

They occasionally hunt for fresh leads in my professional services firm, particularly as we are near their Moorgate swanky office.