Investment Management Approach
St. James's Place builds investment solutions. As the main driver of both opportunity and risk, asset allocation is the cornerstone of its process. SJP selects, who it considers to be the best investment managers from around the world, bringing together their expertise alongside its own to create the SJP fund range.What SJP do:
- Design portfolios suitable for clients’ long-term objectives
- Decide which asset classes to invest in over time
- Select the strategies and managers to populate our portfolios
- Adhere to a strong, robust and repeatable process
This creates our range of solutions
Funds of Funds
Polaris & InRetirement
- Client investment is made into a single fund which invests in other funds. These are ready-made packages of SJP's most sophisticated investment thinking.
- The risk profile remains consistent, as the funds are automatically rebalanced.
Portfolios
Growth
- Client investment is made directly into a selection of individual funds.
- The risk profile may change over time, as the portfolios are not automatically rebalanced.
Individual funds (Building blocks)
- Each is managed according to a specific objective, region or asset class, including multi-asset.
- Such funds can be run by a single manager or multiple managers.
Asset Allocation + Select-Monitor-Change = Portfolio Construction
Asset Allocation and 'Select-Monitor-Change' are at the heart of SJP’s investment process. SJP constructs portfolios using a combination of asset allocation and select-monitor-change.
Asset Allocation
Opportunity – and risk – comes from in what and where we invest. Short-term events and noise can distract. This is why SJP takes a longer view of markets, formed by many factors, led by valuations.
Factors assessed include:
- Valuations - Is there a dislocation between the price of an asset and its fundamental value?
- Fundamentals - What typically influences the performance of a specific area of the market?
- Economic environment - How may the economy impact asset class returns? Now and going forward.
- Behavioural flags - What effect does sentiment/trends have on markets and prices.
- Tail risks - What impact - and on what - would major events such as pandemics, wars or banking crises have?
Select - Monitor - Change
At SJP, external managers are selected from around the world. Thousands of investment groups are continually researched and monitored, and hundreds of hours are involved in an extensive due diligence process.
Significant emphasis is placed on the investment philosophy, process, people and culture of the firms selected. And where SJP feels it is in the clients’ best interests, managers will be changed.
All of SJP’s funds and solutions are built using a set of core principles
These are the foundations on which all investment decisions are made.
Client focus
Active views
Diversification
Discipline
The SJP Investment Committee
SJP’s Investment Committee is made up of industry experts - internal and external. This committee is responsible for setting the policies and parameters, within which the investment team can make informed decisions.
The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up. You may get back less than you invested.
Responsible investing
We know that many of our clients want their money invested responsibly, even if preserving and growing capital, or generating income, might be their primary aims. We take this priority seriously, not least though integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into our investment process.
