St James’s Place – Wealth ManagementThe first time we heard of St James’s Place (SJP) was whilst running Rebel Finance School. Someone popped up in the chat asking whether they were a good place to invest your money. We googled them, discovered high fees and actively managed funds and immediately said “Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!”. High fees alone are enough to send us running for the hills. Fees are the only statistically significant predictor of long term performance. i.e. the more you pay the worse you will do. We knew this as we had exactly the same experience when Katie invested through The Penny Group when she first started investing. You can read about the impact of fees on investing here. Over the years of running Rebel Finance School, St James’s Place kept coming up and people asked us to review their numbers. We were shocked at how badly they performed compared to a global index fund. We had the proof but we never quite got around to pulling it together into an article showing the data. At Rebel Finance School we endlessly talk about doing the maths, knowing the numbers and the results. Don’t believe the hype, do the maths for yourself. Whether it is knowing what the actual return on equity is for your investment property or the performance of your expensive wealth manager over time or some other decision you’re making. Finally an awesome couple came forward willing to share their numbers publicly. They were shocked at what SJP cost them and what it would have meant for their finances in the coming years. Please meet Mark who is going to tell you all about his experience with St James’s Place and the real numbers behind his investments. Don’t believe the hype. Believe the numbers and the maths. St James’s PlaceA cautionary tale: The dangers of high fee platforms and funds! My name is Mark and I have had an SJP problem. A bit of background, I’m in my late fifties and have been working in the technology industry (in data and analytics) for 40 years. I’ve been very lucky in that each of my employers have provided an employer contribution pension over that time (and the first took the time to explain the benefits of saving for my retirement). Rewind 8 years or so from today, I’d had an Independent Financial Advisor and he’d consolidated all my pensions into a single pot, but he’d pass on and I was currently IFA-less. I was in a high/medium risk investment strategy, reasonably diverse but including some gilts and bonds, some cash and for all I knew some of Alan’s favourite fruit too! (sorry, RFS in-joke). I was a bit concerned that my retirement pot wasn’t working for the future as well as it could, I worked out that it was averaging about 4.5% growth, and I wasn’t sure that that was great, then someone I know introduced me to a St James’s Place (SJP) advisor. She (the SJP advisor)