St James’s Place opinions?

zagfles

UncleK said:

Sure. The Fisher initial charges are:

Initial Adviser Charge of £825

Initial Funding Amount of 2.25% on first £300,000 plus 1.5% on next £200,000 and the 1% on remaining £500,000 giving total of £14,750

OK so that's easy enough, just chop £15575 off the initial investment

Fisher ongoing charges are:

1.51% on their Fisher OEIC B shares (they waive the entry charge)

Wow that's generous of them!

Annual management fee is 1.5% up to £500,000, 1.25% for £500,001 to £1,000,000 and 1.125% above that.

Custodian fee of £1,400 per year (estimate by me - they say 0.1% to 0.2% and "it depends").

Financial Planning request requiring written advice costs £420 each time (which I assumed zero in my calcs) as I assumed that would be "special" as opposed to regular stuff - but not sure - gave then the benefit of the doubt. Small beer in the scheme of things.

Transaction costs would be extra but also not included.

OK tiered AM charges make the maths far more complicated as the relative amounts in the tiers will change with investment growth. However, are the tiers nailed down for the long term? If not, I'll cheat and make the bold assumption that the tiers will increase in line with investment growth after charges, and so the initial weighted average AM charge will remain the same over the whole term.

If this is the case, then the initial weighted average annual charge is 1.51% fund + 1.375% AM charge + (say) 0.1% custodian = 2.985%  (OMG is this really right??!!)

So at 5% growth, net growth will be 2.015%:

(1,000,000 - 15575) * 1.02015^25 = £1,621,001

At 8% growth, net growth will be 5.015%:

(1,000,000 - 15575) * 1.05015^25 = £3,345,538

Similar but bit lower than the spreadsheet result but I guess that'll be mainly because the spreadsheet method assumes static AM fee bands. 

UncleK

Yes, agree, the difference will be because of the static AM fee bands.

st1040

Just want to say a big thanks to people that have commented on my question, unfortunately I posted this question then got a real bad bout of Covid which is why I haven't been very active, wiped me out! With regards to my accountant been straight, I contacted him straight away about my doubts and he said "what ever you want to do is totally up to you and I have no stake in it at all"  I do trust my accountant, he's done some really good work over the years for me. Think I'm going to go IFA or DIY (Can anyone recommend an IFA, I'm Leeds Based?)  Thanks again for helping me make a decision that could have ended up costing me thousands! 

dunstonh

Think I'm going to go IFA or DIY (Can anyone recommend an IFA, I'm Leeds Based?)

The majority of IFAs are small localised firms with 1-5 advisers.   They will have a similar internet footprint as your local bakery.  i.e. unless you are in the area, you won't know anything about them.

There are several national IFA firms, but they tend to have higher staff turnover and often more inexperienced advisers as they are the training grounds for those wanting to move onto better things.  They also take a big chunk of the fee income from the adviser, so fees tend to be higher reflecting that.      That doesn't mean there are not greedy small firms, but you generally find that better value is in the small "independent" IFAs rather than the chain IFAs.