There are 10 million British families with investable assets of more than £50,000. St James’s Place and its army of self-employed financial advisers serve just over half a million of them.
For the most part, they seem to like what they are getting. The company reported record first-quarter net inflows of £1.99 billion, its funds under management growing to almost £80 billion.
St James’s caters for those with neither the time, the inclination nor the confidence to manage their own nest-eggs. With pensions and tax rules ever more fiendishly complicated, that sounds like a nicely growing potential customer base.
David Bellamy, St James’s chief executive, can’t remember a time when the company suffered a quarter of net outflows. It certainly hasn’t been in the past