St James Place pension and investments

[calli335]

I have an SJP advisor coming to see me on Wednesday to talk about a pension and investing some of my savings. Does anyone have any experience of SJP and whether they are a good company to invest with? TIA

With regards to their Retirement Account pension, there is an Initial Advice charge of 4.5% of your initial investment, plus 0.5% annual charge for ongoing advice.

There will be an initial product charge of 1.5% of the investment, and after 6 years an annual product management charge of 1%pa. Early encashment within the first 6 years of investment carries an early withdrawal charge of 1% per year of fund value.

There are also fund charges payable, which vary depending on underlying fund choice, of up to 1.26%pa as far as I can see.

To give you some idea of a comparison, my Initial Advice fee varies but is no more than 3%, on-going advice is typically 0.75%pa, and product charges are typically no more than 0.35%pa depending on the chosen provider. Underlying fund charges vary but are similar to the SJP ones. I choose not to recommend products that have early exit penalties. I am neither the cheapest nor the most expensive adviser in terms of charging.

Hi I am trying to decide on where is best to get advise - I think we actually need the tax element of the financial advise as we can invest into products in the online platforms and are fairly financially literate.

However what we need help with is ensuring that we use all of the tax effective options out there to enhance our finances and pay the lowest (legal) tax that we can.

Advice?

SoTired

This is an old thread relating mainly to a named financial company, you would be better off starting your own thread, either in investments or money matters.

Sophiesdog11 I did when I realised, its in investments

My parents are with an St James adviser, and I took a look over the documents that were provided. He has undertaken his reviews every year, and returns calls when needed. The IFA that they had previously, signed them up and then didn't contact them for 4 years (until the St James Place adviser asked for the policy information!)

I had a look at the document, and the St James initial charge was 3% (apparently he can not justify 5%)for his ongoing costs, and the St James is 0.5%. So in total the old IFA was over 2% when you built in all the charges for platform etc.

I appreciate that there are good IFA's and bad, and I assume the same with St. James

However, I self manage mine via an online platform at a fraction of the costs. However, my parents dont want that responsibility.

sorry should read 1% ongoing fee for IFA

The issue with SJP isn't only the fees you pay the advisor, but the exit fees and the fact that can only recommend their own funds - which have significantly higher ongoing charges than others. IFAs cover the whole market and should be able to select funds with lower ongoing charges, no initial fee and no exit fee.

www.yodelar.com/insights/st-jamess-place-charges

I do not know of any IFA what would not charge an initial fee?

There are plenty of funds that charge no initial fee. SJP funds do. On top of the advisor fee.