saint james place

dunstonh

Diana_Mackintosh said:

I profoundly regret ever investing with SJP and I do hope you haven’t!   I’m trapped in the property fund suspension and cannot access my investment until SJP allows and there is only a vague possible 2 year wait. Quite outrageous. Other investment firms got out of property long ago. This has been the worst decision of my life. 

Indeed they did.   We received a due diligence bulletin late 2019 warning us to exit property funds at the earliest opportunity.  We spent a month rushing around to all the servicing clients to get them out before Christmas.    

MeteredOut

blueheron said:

Is SJM a safe place to invest in ? And does it perform well compared to other investment options ?

I'd say SJP is probably one of the safest wealth managers out there. It's so safe that it can take customers years to get their investments out of the some of the funds they're invested in, so there's little chance of fraudsters getting their hands on it

pterri

I’ve asked a three people I know for FA recommendations. These are ‘professionals’ in their fields, engineers, scientists or in positions where they analyse complex arguments and develop policy. They all recommended SJP. It just goes to show that if you are an expert in one field it doesn’t mean you are especially expert of show good judgement in another. See also tech billionaires, they made a fortune and are amongst the richest in the world so naturally they can opine about vaccines  or Ukraine (sorry for the slight swerve to politics)

I also spoke to someone I’ve known for years, they have left my organisation and are a director at a consultancy. They were asking about my early retirement and I explained that how the DB pension she has from working at the same place I am works, she had a vauge idea but not really. I also told them to check if their spouse they have split with is on their expression of wish form and to perhaps check!

im no pension expert but this forum is populated by the few percent in the UK who understand some of the issues, I expect there is a lot of bad decision making out there.  

Moonwolf

pterri said:

im no pension expert but this forum is populated by the few percent in the UK who understand some of the issues, I expect there is a lot of bad decision making out there.  

I made a lot of mistakes in my first 25 years or so of having a pension, before I joined this forum. These include a policy with Allied Dunbar because the FA was charming, not reading the paperwork, not researching costs and having default funds in the DC pots.

It is a bit easy to be dismissive but it has taken some effort to understand things to the level I do and that is still far short of many on here.

pterri

Moonwolf said:

pterri said:

im no pension expert but this forum is populated by the few percent in the UK who understand some of the issues, I expect there is a lot of bad decision making out there.  

I made a lot of mistakes in my first 25 years or so of having a pension, before I joined this forum. These include a policy with Allied Dunbar because the FA was charming, not reading the paperwork, not researching costs and having default funds in the DC pots.

It is a bit easy to be dismissive but it has taken some effort to understand things to the level I do and that is still far short of many on here.

Indeed, also I was young and trusting, I was newly minted with a degree so thought I was smart. A FA persuaded me to opt of my company DB pension and take up a private pension as the DB ‘would only reach a max of 60% of my final salary’. Luckily I realised after about 18mnts that I’d been sold a pup so cancelled and joined the company scheme. Eventually got some compensation for shoddy advice which I was able to buy back some of t(e missing DB  so not much damage done. I was naive enough to believe that other ‘professionals’ are not knowingly trying to rob you.

pterri

pterri said:

Moonwolf said:

pterri said:

im no pension expert but this forum is populated by the few percent in the UK who understand some of the issues, I expect there is a lot of bad decision making out there.  

I made a lot of mistakes in my first 25 years or so of having a pension, before I joined this forum. These include a policy with Allied Dunbar because the FA was charming, not reading the paperwork, not researching costs and having default funds in the DC pots.

It is a bit easy to be dismissive but it has taken some effort to understand things to the level I do and that is still far short of many on here.

Indeed, also I was young and trusting, I was newly minted with a degree so thought I was smart. A FA persuaded me to opt of my company DB pension and take up a private pension as the DB ‘would only reach a max of 60% of my final salary’. Luckily I realised after about 18mnts that I’d been sold a pup so cancelled and joined the company scheme. Eventually got some compensation for shoddy advice which I was able to buy back some of t(e missing DB  so not much damage done. I was naive enough to believe that other ‘professionals’ are not knowingly trying to rob you.

It was this bunch of absolute crooks 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2000/oct/07/personalfinancenews