St James’s Place is working to overhaul the ‘cruise and cufflink’ image that it has long been saddled with, including dropping its annual conference for advisers at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena.
The wealth manager giant, which will be re-promoted to the FTSE 100 later this month, has dropped the opulent gathering with its 4,852 advisers for a virtual meeting in January.
Speakers at previous annual events have included Bob Geldof, David Beckham and Bill Clinton, while the conference was followed by a ‘lavish’ dinner.
“Discontinuing the annual O2 conference is an optically good move for St James’s Place,” said Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services.
“It signals a shift with the times, where the priority must lie in putting clients first and driving costs down.”
Additionally, the firm is considering cutting a spring break for its advisers at the Scottish Gleneagles hotel, the FT reported.
St James’s Place has struggled to shake off its image of high spending and sales-hungry advisers, as various scandals over the culture of the company have emerged.
“They’ve had such a lot of bad publicity in the last few years that it was inevitable that change would happen,” Ben Yearsley, investment consultant at Fairview Investing, told City AM.
St James’s Place overhauled its pay and incentive measures in 2020, cutting its huge rewards for meeting sales targets such as Montblanc pens and Mulberry bags, even trips on chartered planes and luxury cruise liners.
Meanwhile, it has pledged to overhaul its opaque fee structure and scrap its exit charge, while bringing in new CEO Mark Fitzpatrick last year with a focus on changing the company.
Cost cutting has become a primary focus of a company that previously received accusations of spending in excess, especially as it engages in plans to cut around a sixth of its non-financial adviser workforce in February.
“I think things like their O2 gig are more for optics rather than anything that really changes the firm,” added Yearsley. “Shareholders will welcome the focus on things like this, though.”
The wealth manager’s stock price is up 29 per cent since the start of the year, and more than 110 per cent since it hit a decade low in April.
A St James’s Place spokesperson told City AM: “We have been evolving how we engage with the partnership over several years as part of our continuous efforts to update and improve how we do business.
“As part of that evolution, our Annual Company Meeting will take on a new format in 2025. The focus will be on smaller gatherings that allow us to come together as a community to collaborate, recognise outstanding achievements and learn together.”