London, June 18, 2026, 15:13 BST
- St. James’s Place shares fall about 2% to 1,144p in afternoon trade, against a roughly 1% decline in the FTSE 100.
- The wealth manager will rename its underlying cash result as adjusted IFRS profit after tax, without changing its business model, profit expectations or shareholder-return policy.
St. James’s Place shares fell on Thursday as the British wealth manager set out a simpler framework for reporting earnings. The stock was down about 2% at 1,144p shortly before 1500 BST.
The decline was somewhat steeper than the wider London market, although it did not come in isolation. The FTSE 100 was down 0.87% at 1345 GMT as miners and financial stocks weakened after the Bank of England kept rates at 3.75% and the U.S. Federal Reserve struck a more hawkish tone.
Under the new format, which will first appear in the 2026 half-year results, SJP’s “underlying cash result” will become “adjusted IFRS profit after tax”. The figure itself is unchanged. Income and expenses will also be presented separately and before tax, bringing the disclosure closer to IFRS, the accounting rules used for statutory financial statements. TradingView
Chief Financial Officer Caroline Waddington said “nothing about our profitability is changing”. For analysts, she described the exercise as “updating your models and not rebuilding them”.
The more useful change may be the new guidance around earnings from funds under management, or FUM. SJP expects profit from FUM to equal 47 to 49 basis points of average total FUM in 2026, with the range rising by about three basis points annually through 2031 as legacy assets begin generating ongoing charges. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
For 2025, the renamed adjusted profit measure would have been £462.3 million, compared with statutory IFRS profit after tax of £531.4 million. The board still intends to return 70% of the adjusted measure to shareholders from 2026 through dividends and share buybacks, with ordinary dividends making up at least 40% of total returns.
The operating backdrop is mixed rather than weak. First-quarter gross inflows rose to £5.23 billion from £5.14 billion a year earlier, but net inflows eased to £1.53 billion from £1.69 billion. Closing FUM stood at £216.94 billion and the annualised retention rate improved to 95.3%. Chief Executive Mark FitzPatrick called it a “good first quarter”. St. James’s Place
Investors are also watching compliance costs across Britain’s wealth-management industry. Peer Rathbones lost 18% on June 16 after announcing restrictions on business from higher-risk clients and a roughly £60 million remediation programme. That issue is specific to Rathbones, but the reaction showed how quickly the sector can be punished when regulatory work threatens inflows or margins.
But a cleaner income statement does not remove SJP’s main risks. Weaker markets or softer net new money would reduce the asset base that generates most of its profit, while cost slippage or unexpected remediation charges could absorb cash otherwise available for dividends and buybacks. The use of an adjusted profit measure also means the reconciliations with statutory earnings will still require close attention.
The reporting change should reduce some of the friction involved in valuing SJP, particularly by linking profit more directly to total FUM. It does not, by itself, strengthen earnings. The next share-price test will be whether the half-year numbers show resilient inflows, controlled costs and progress towards the margin expansion now set out more plainly.
