Media Overview

Media Overview

Who we are

With £39 billion of client funds under management, the St. James’s Place Wealth Management Group specialises in the provision of face-to-face wealth management advice to individuals, trustees and businesses. We provide advice to clients based on their individual needs and circumstances, adapting our advice as requirements change over time to ensure that recommendations remain appropriate.

What we do

Our relationship-based approach is greatly valued by our clients, no more so than in the current period of financial uncertainty. There is an increasing demand for trusted advice from experienced advisers backed by a strong organisation and brand.

What makes us different?

The relationships between Partners and clients endure because they are founded on mutual respect and trust, with the emphasis on building and maintaining a long-term relationship. The success of our approach can be seen from the fact that some 90% of new investments come from existing clients or from referrals and introductions from them. Once invested, clients tend to stay invested and we're extremely pleased with the consistent, year on year retention of funds under management of 95%.

Our market place

We specialise in meeting the financial needs of people who have created more capital, or who earn higher incomes than average, and where circumstances are therefore more complicated than usual. We provide a highly professional service delivering a reliable and personal service designed to suit individual requirements.

The UK comprises one of the highest populations of high net worth individuals in Western Europe. The majority of these individuals will have an increasing need for advice as financial markets become ever more complex, and governments and employers continue to transfer the burden of provision to the individual.

How we operate

We believe we remain uniquely positioned to continue to succeed in our market because of the two fundamental principles that have underpinned our business from day one; the strength of the relationship between our advisers and their clients, and our approach to investment management.

The St. James’s Place Partnership

The members of the St. James’s Place Partnership play the leading role in delivering our wealth management service. The Partners, so called because of the way they work in partnership with their clients have, on average, over 18 years’ experience in their field and include some of the most experienced and able professionals working in wealth management today.

Discover more about the St. James's Place Partnership.

Our Approach to Investment Management

Recognising that no single investment house has a monopoly on investment expertise,
St. James's Place carefully selects a number of external managers of outstanding ability to manage our funds.

We do not place clients’ money in the hands of our own team of investment managers: indeed, we have no investment managers of our own. Instead, we are free to choose any investment manager from any fund management firm anywhere in the world.

The responsibility of selecting the range of funds and fund managers that are made available to St. James’s Place clients at any one time falls upon the St. James’s Place Investment Committee, advised by the respected independent investment research consultancy, Stamford Associates.

Stamford Associates share their extensive research of the global investment markets with a small number of companies. We are particularly proud to have them on our team, as St. James’s Place is the only company they work with that provides wealth management advice to private individuals or Trustees.

The Committee meets regularly to review performance and consider detailed reports from each investment manager. If a change in the marketplace calls for the addition of another manager, the Committee will select one. Equally, if the Committee loses confidence in the ability of an existing manager it will replace them.

We remain committed to monitoring and reviewing all of our fund managers to ensure we generate the optimum return for our clients’ investments. During 2011, the Investment Committee made seven new fund manager appointments. The new managers and mandates appointed were:

Philip Brides of BlackRock (Alternative Assets fund)
Nimesh Patel of BlackRock (Global Equity Fund)
Sunil Thakor & David Levanson of Sands Capital Management (Global Equity Fund)
William Browne, John Spears, Tom Shrager and Robert Wyckoff of Tweedy Browne Company (Global Equity Fund)
Chris Bartram and Phillip Rodger of Orchard Street Investment Management (Property Fund)
Howard Gleicher of Aristotle Capital Management (North American Fund)

The Committee also oversaw the development and launch of seven portfolios to support and strengthen the St. James’s Place advice process.

We remain committed to monitoring and reviewing all of our fund managers to ensure we generate the optimum return for our clients’ investment.

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