St James’s Place saw a raft of inflows into its funds in the first half of the year, exceeding analyst expectations that the scandal-rocked firm would be fail to bring in substantial new business.
The wealth manager reported that net inflows totalled £1.9bn in the six months to the end of June, down substantially from £3.4bn the year before, but far exceeding estimates of around £1.4bn from analysts like Peel Hunt.
The drop in new cash came largely from a surge in outflows, as gross inflows actually ticked up, suggesting customers were taking advantage of St James’s Place’s dropping its controversial exit fee policy that came into force in recent months.
The group’s underlying cash result also beat expectations, dropping only one per cent from last year to £205.2m. Analyst consensus had pegged it around £185m.
Mark Fitzpatrick, the new chief exec of SJP, said the last six months had seen the business “make progress against our significant programmes of work to simplify our charging structure and review historic client servicing records”.
“We are on track to deliver our new charging structure in the second half of 2025, in line with previous guidance,” he added.
In today’s results, SJP also announced it would be embarking on a £100m cost-cutting programme over the next two years, with cumulative cuts of around £500m expected by 2030.
The group also reported a new record figure for assets under management of £181.9bn, leaving them only £3.9bn short of analyst expectations for where they will sit at the end of 2024 (£185.8bn).
St James’s Place’s stock price had been in freefall until April, when shares hit a decade low and plummeted out of the FTSE 100.
The share price drop was spurred on by an announcement that the wealth manager would be slashing its dividend and setting aside £426m to deal with complaints from customers.
Since then, the group has somewhat recovered, with share prices rising 40 per cent over the last few months, though prices are still down 15 per cent since the start of 2024.