LONDON, April 24, 2026, 16:10 BST
- St. James’s Place shares were lower in delayed London market data on Friday.
- The wealth manager bought 231,044 shares for cancellation this week.
- Investors now turn to its first-quarter new business update due April 29.
St. James’s Place Plc shares fell in London on Friday as investors looked toward next week’s first-quarter flows update, with the UK wealth manager also pressing on with a share buyback that will cut its ordinary share count. Hargreaves Lansdown quoted the stock at 1,261.5p to sell and 1,262.5p to buy, down 31p, or 2.4%, with prices delayed by at least 15 minutes.
The timing matters. St. James’s Place is due to publish its first-quarter new business announcement on April 29, followed by its annual general meeting on April 30, putting fresh focus on whether last year’s recovery in client money and profits is holding.
The latest filing showed SJP bought 231,044 ordinary shares on April 22 at an average price of 1,298.4521p, with prices ranging from 1,286.5p to 1,306.5p. The company said it intends to cancel the shares, leaving 519,398,538 ordinary shares in issue after cancellation.
That is not a large buyback in itself. But it sits inside a bigger capital-return story after SJP said in February it would lift total annual shareholder distributions to 70% of its underlying cash result from 2026. Underlying cash result is the group’s preferred measure of recurring cash profit, excluding one-off items and timing effects.
SJP ended 2025 with record funds under management of £220.0 billion. Funds under management, or FUM, is the client money overseen by the firm and is central to the fees it earns. Gross inflows rose to £21.9 billion and net inflows reached £6.2 billion, the company said in its full-year results.
Profit also improved. SJP reported IFRS profit after tax of £531.4 million for 2025, up from £398.4 million a year earlier, while its post-tax underlying cash result rose 3% to £462.3 million. Reuters reported at the time that the payout increase came a year ahead of schedule and followed annual earnings above company-compiled analyst forecasts.
Chief Executive Mark FitzPatrick said in February that SJP had made “substantial progress” after its strategy reset, including work to make the business simpler and more transparent. He also flagged an uncertain consumer backdrop, a point likely to stay near the front of investors’ minds when the first-quarter figures land. Investegate
Away from the stock, SJP joined a new UK retail investing campaign launched on April 23 and backed by 20 financial services firms, including Quilter, Schroders, Vanguard, NatWest Group and the London Stock Exchange. The Investment Association said the campaign aims to reach savers who hold cash but do not yet invest, with research showing 10.1 million such savers want to learn more.
Chris Cummings, chief executive of the Investment Association, said there was “clear demand from millions of savers” who want to do more with their money but lack confidence on where to begin. Sasha Wiggins, chair of the campaign and CEO of private bank and wealth management at Barclays, said the UK has a strong savings culture but “a significant investing gap.” The Investment Association
The peer context is crowded. Quilter, Schroders and Vanguard are part of the same campaign, and each has an interest in moving more household cash into long-term investment products. For SJP, Britain’s largest advice-led wealth manager by reputation and scale, that push may help the broader market. It does not replace the need to show net inflows next week.
The risk is that flows disappoint if markets stay volatile or clients remain cautious after tax, fee and inflation worries. There is also the longer-running question of how artificial intelligence changes financial advice: Reuters reported in February that SJP fell 12.2% during an AI-driven selloff in wealth managers, while Quilter and Rathbones also dropped. UBS strategist Gerry Fowler said advice-led services were more exposed to disruption than transaction-heavy financial businesses.
For now, the buyback gives SJP a steady capital-return lever. The harder test comes Wednesday, when the first-quarter update will show whether clients are still adding money after the group’s fee overhaul and 2025 rebound.
