5 / 40
THE INVESTOR
|
05
25TH ANNIVERSARY
1992–2017
St. James’s Place Managing Director looks
at the game-changing events that have
affected markets,and the skills needed to
continue to provide investment returns
BUILT TO
EVOLVE
BY DAVID LAMB
UK’s 100 largest companies. Over the
past three years we have expanded our
reach with the acquisition of the Henley
Group, which took us into Hong Kong,
Shanghai and Singapore, and Rowan
Dartington, which added a discretionary
fund management arm to the business.
Our market value has risen to £5 billion.
We have developed our Investment
Management Approach with the
appointment of new fund managers, and
expert consultants to help us ensure that
these managers continue to provide the
returns we expect from them.
But the basic principles and values of
the company have not changed.We aim
to treat everyone we deal with – clients
and Partners, employees and suppliers,
fund managers and our local community
– with respect.We work to offer a
consistent service to our Partners,
and through them to their clients who
neither have the time, confidence or
inclination to look after their own affairs.
We recognise that, for most of them,
their main requirement is now to keep
their money safe and attain a decent
return. Our portfolio approach, which
gives access to a diversified range of
assets, and the holistic advice available
from our Partners on everything from
tax to intergenerational planning, is
designed with these objectives in mind.
Our values are exemplified in the
St. James’s Place Foundation, which
was launched shortly after we started
trading, and which has now raised more
than £50 million through the efforts
of our Partners and staff to support
charities in our core areas of cherishing
children, combating cancer and
supporting hospices.
The world still faces a number of
challenges, from securing a recovery
from the financial crisis to the rise of
extremism; and the next 25 years are
likely to be as eventful as the last.We
do not know how the technological
revolution will play out. But we will
continue to believe in the strength of
our human capital and the integrity
of our relationships with others.
B
rexit, the election of DonaldTrump, the threat of
economic slowdown in China: the world can look
a frightening place for investors at the moment.
Looking back over the past 25 years, however,
to events like 9/11, the technology boom and bust and
the collapse of the Soviet Union, and it is clear that we live
in turbulent times.The world is constantly changing and
investors can have no clear idea of what the next 10 years, let
alone the next 25, will bring.What they need is a process that
can evolve and adapt for changing circumstances.
St. James’s Place’s Investment Management Approach is
designed to do that.The point is not to find a fund manager
who gets the Brexit prediction correct, for example; it is
about having a rigorous investment process which we can be
confident will produce the results which are expected, in any
given set of circumstances.
Together with investment consultants StamfordAssociates
and Redington, we spend a considerable amount of time
reviewing the investment activities and decisions of managers;
we call it‘following the footprints’ to ensure our managers
remain successful. Our selection and monitoring process is
rigorous and, while we do not like changing managers, we
will do so if they do not meet our expectations. The aim is
clear: to ensure that our Partners have the tools they need to
give their best advice to their clients.
What investors
need is a process
that can evolve
and adapt
Massao Yamazaki