St James’s Place: UK’s largest wealth manager kicks off share buyback
St James’s Place has kicked off a fresh share buyback programme as the UK’s largest wealth manager looks to bounce back from a tough year marked by scandal.
The FTSE 100 firm said in a stock market update on Tuesday that it would begin a share buyback programme worth up to £32.9m, starting on 27 August and ending no later than 31 December 2024.
The buyback was previously unveiled in the firm’s half-year results last month, which shocked the scandal-hit stock’s analysts.
The announcement of a new £500m cost-cutting target by 2030—including £100m in planned cuts over the next two years—and a stellar set of financials sent its stock price up 21 per cent.
St James’s Place also announced it had taken in £1.9bn in new client money over the period, above the £1.3bn expected by analysts.
The recovery marked somewhat of a recovery for the company, which has faced intense scrutiny in recent years. Shares in the wealth manager have slumped more than 50 per cent from their five-year high of around 1,672p printed in December 2021.
After regulatory pressure forced the Cirencester-based company to overhaul its fee structure last July and October.
Mark FitzPatrick succeeded Andrew Croft as chief executive of St James’s Place in December. Still, his tenure got off to a bad start when the firm reported a post-tax loss and cut its dividend after setting aside £426m to pay out refunds to customers after a slew of historic complaints in February.
Nevertheless, on the back of last month’s results, Bank of America titled its latest note on the wealth manager: “St James’s Place: Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”.