St James’s Place: Assets slump as firm gears up for fee changes
St James’s Place lost £3.3bn from weakening markets in the first quarter of 2025, despite investors continuing to pile cash into the wealth manager.
The UK’s largest wealth manager reported that its assets under management fell during the quarter for the first time in years, as turmoil in the stock market impacted investments, according to a trading update.
Analysts had been expecting funds under management at St James’s Place to continue rising from £190.2 to £197bn, underestimating the impact that market performance would have on the firm.
However, all areas of the business lost money on the market, with its investment arm losing £530m, its pension arm losing £2bn, and its discretionary fund management business losing £820m.
St James’s Place has 38 per cent of its assets in North American stocks, which fell sharply in the first three months of 2025 due to fears over trade wars and threats to the strong position held by the Magnificent Seven in the market.
This led the firm’s funds under management to decline to £188.6bn by the end of March, below the level it had started the year.
All parts of the firm generated new cash throughout the quarter, but the firm’s £101bn pension arm was the clear favourite among investors, as they deposited £1.3bn into it during the quarter.
In total, investors deposited £1.7bn into St James’s Place during the first three months of 2025, compared to analyst expectations of £1.3bn.
Investors have continued to surprise analysts by piling even more money into the wealth manager, despite high fees and questions around performance.
“We are pleased to have built momentum in new business in recent quarters, and we have continued to see good levels of client engagement and activity so far in April,” said St James’s Place CEO Mark Fitzpatrick.
St James’s Place fees
In the trading update, St James’s Place also gave details about its upcoming cost structure reform, that the market has anticipated for some time.
“We will be implementing our simple, comparable charging structure over the summer, and our work to review historic client servicing records and implement our cost and efficiency programme continues to move forward,” said Fitzpatrick.
St James’s Place has previously come under fire for its opaque fee structure which bundles charges together, leaving investors unable to understand where cash is being spent.
The pledge to reform the cost regime at the wealth manager is part of a wider effort to modernise and improve performance.