St. James’s Place (LSE: STJ): priced below the private market, October 2026
Priced below the private market: St. James’s Place, October 2026
St. James’s Place lost a fifth of its market value in three weeks this summer on £5bn of reported adviser departures, out of £240.8bn of client funds. At 1,082p the shares trade at 0.49x the company’s own published embedded value and at 2.3% of client assets, against a median 2.9% paid for UK wealth businesses in private deals since 2021.
This 62-page report tests whether the market has the story right. In my view it has priced a general failure of the Partnership model on evidence that supports a specific and contained problem.
What’s inside
- The departures, sized: the £5bn in context, and what happens to a departing practice’s advisers and clients.
- Why they left: how the August 2025 charging changes fell hardest on the largest practices.
- The real weakness: why net inflows, not departures, are the problem, and what the Q3 statement on 29 October needs to show.
- The embedded value test: what would have to be true for 0.49x to be the right price, using the company’s own sensitivities.
- The peer test: eight quarters of flows against Quilter and Rathbones. SJP had the lowest outflow rate of the three in every quarter.
- The private-market test: seven UK wealth deals since 2021 applied to SJP’s book, with and without a control premium.
- The Budget: why 28 October is bad for wealth but good for advice.
- What would change my view, with a dated watch list.
There are 22 exhibits in all, including performance and valuation charts across UK and European insurers, priced at 21 October 2026.
About the author: Gordon Aitken has covered St. James’s Place since 2011, as Managing Director and Head of European Insurance at RBC Capital Markets and now independently at Aitken Advisory. He trained as an actuary and has spent over 30 years in insurance and asset management.
Independent research by Aitken Advisory Limited. For information purposes only; not investment advice.