St James’s Place (STJ) chief executive David Bellamy will be leaving the wealth manager in good shape when he steps down later this year. Pensions reform and changes to the tax system are the gifts that keep giving for the group, which caters to a roster of high net worth clients. It gained net inflows of £4.3bn during the first six months of the year, beating the £3.1bn in new business the same time last year.
The pensions business was the top performer, with net new business of £2.3bn and £1.5bn in investment returns taking funds under management to almost £32bn. The unit trust and discretionary fund management business received a £0.23bn uplift in business via its acquisition of Rowan Dartington. Along with organic flows, funds under management reached £24bn. Adviser numbers were up 4 per cent to 3,540 within its partnership network, which helped to improve distribution. What’s more, growth in new business across all parts of the group brought with it economies of scale. As a result, new business margins improved to 5 per cent, from 4.5 per cent the previous year.
Analysts at Shore Capital expect embedded value (excluding dividends) of 1,000p at December 31 2017, up from 880p the previous year.
| ST JAMES'S PLACE (STJ) | ||||
| ORD PRICE: | 1,229p | MARKET VALUE: | £ 6.5bn | |
| TOUCH: | 1,228-1,229p | 12-MONTH HIGH: | 1,245p | LOW: 891p |
| DIVIDEND YIELD: | 2.9% | PE RATIO: | 51 | |
| NET ASSET VALUE: | 196p* | EMBEDDED VALUE: | 977p | |
| Half-year to 30 Jun | Gross written premiums (£m) | Pre-tax profit (£m) | Earnings per share (p) | Dividend per share (p) |
| 2016 | 24.7 | 97 | 9.3 | 12.33 |
| 2017 | 23.7 | 194 | 11.8 | 15.41 |
| % change | -4 | +100 | +27 | +25 |
| Ex-div: | 31 Aug | |||
| Payment: | 29 Sep | |||
| *Includes intangible assets of £700m, or 132p a share | ||||
