St. James's Place (LSE: STJ): priced for an exodus that the numbers do not support

St. James's Place lost a fifth of its market value in three weeks. Adviser practices advising £5bn were reported to be leaving, a broker had already questioned whether AI ends face-to-face advice, and the shares fell to half their embedded value, a level last seen in the depths of the 2023 redress crisis. Three weeks of silence followed, with no further departures and no further press, and the shares fell anyway. This 37-page report works out what the departures are actually worth, and the number is not what the market has priced.

Inside: the departures sized on management's own retention experience, then stress-tested against private accounts of what happens when practices leave by choice; why the adviser economics changed in August 2025 and which practices it hit hardest; what the H1 2026 results showed on client retention, flows and capital returns; the £51bn gestation pool that starts paying its way to 2032; Healey's first Budget as a demand event for advice; the AI question answered honestly; and the valuation at half of embedded value, tested against the company's own published sensitivities and persistency assumptions, with a table showing how much of the book would have to leave for the price to be right. Also inside: Aitken Advisory forecasts for net flows and adviser numbers to 2027 against consensus and management guidance, the buy-back arithmetic, and a dated watch-list running from the Q3 statement on 29 October, the morning after the Budget, to next March. Updated 17 September 2026: repriced to the current close, every chart refreshed, and a checklist of what to look for on 29 October. Four appendices carry the methodology, the data registries and the workings, and the report's 14 exhibits mean every number can be checked or challenged.

By Gordon Aitken, qualified actuary, 30+ years in insurance and asset management, who first covered SJP in 2011. Informed by non-attributable conversations in and around the Partnership. Independent commentary for information purposes only: no rating, no price target, not investment advice or a personal recommendation. The author owns shares in companies mentioned.