SJP scraps exit fees in charging shake-up
- St James’s Place has long faced accusations of charging high amounts to clients
- The new charging arrangement is set to take effect in the second half of 2025
St James’s Place has scrapped exit fees for new bond and pension investments in a revamp of its charging structure after facing scrutiny from regulators.
Britain’s largest wealth manager has long faced accusations of excessive fees to customers for financial advice and early withdrawals.
The shake-up will see the ‘vast majority’ of new pensions and bond investment charge initial and ongoing fees, but with no early withdrawal charges or gestation period.
Updated: St James’s Place has revealed a new charging structure on its core products
The company believes the proposals will lead to greater simplicity and comparability of products, as well as greater value for clients in line with Consumer Duty rules introduced in July.
SJP will also now separate charges across its investment products, having historically been disclosed on an all-inclusive basis.
Fees for initial and ongoing advice, investment management, and product administration will now be listed separately.
Charges will additionally be ‘rebalanced’ in order to ‘better reflect the value clients see across each element of our proposition’, SJP said.
They are set to take effect during the second half of 2025.
SJP shares plummeted last week on reports that it was considering a shake-up of its fee structure.
Investors were concerned that major changes to SJP’s lucrative fee model would have a substantial impact on revenues and profits.
The group told shareholders on Tuesday that the changes will ‘affect the shape of the cash result in the future’, reducing the underlying cash result ‘over the next few years’ before ‘growth accelerates over the medium term and beyond’.
Andrew Croft, chief executive of SJP, said: ‘I am confident that SJP’s ability to both deliver and demonstrate value in the future, with this sustainable model of charging for our end-to-end services, is good for clients and represents an exciting opportunity.’
SJP also declared on Tuesday that its funds under management grew in the third quarter of this year, rising by just over £1billion to £158.6billion.
SJP shares were up 1.6 per cent to 682.8p in early trading.