Q4 2025 St James's Place PLC Earnings Call - Q&A

February 25, 2026

Speaker #1: Hello and welcome, everyone, to the St. James' Place 2025 full-year results Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad now.

Speaker #1: If for any reason you want to remove yourself from the queue, please press star followed by 2. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally.

Speaker #1: I will now hand over to Mark Fitzpatrick, Chief Executive Officer, to begin.

Speaker #2: Thank you. And good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Unfortunately, Caroline is unable to be with us this morning due to a family bereavement.

Speaker #2: Instead, I'm joined by Charles Wood, our Finance Director. Before we open for questions, I'd like to briefly reflect on a year of strong delivery and execution for St. James's Place.

Speaker #2: James' Place. We delivered growth in new business, growth in funds under management, and growth in underlying cash result, while at the same time delivering strong returns for our clients.

Speaker #2: Drawing out some of the results, which are new today, the underlying cash result of £462 million up 3% year on year, and 4% ahead of consensus.

Speaker #2: Underlying cash basic EPS of £87 per share, up 6% year on year. We're returning 50% of the underlying cash result to shareholders through ordinary dividends and buybacks.

Speaker #2: And a total of £313 million to be returned to shareholders for 2025. Alongside delivering a strong operational and financial performance, we made good strategic progress.

Speaker #2: Our simple, comparable charging structure implementation went live smoothly in late summer. The new structure puts our investment performance on a fully comparable footing with the wider market and enables a successful launch of Polaris Multi-Index.

Speaker #2: This has broadened client choice and grew to over £1 billion of fund at year-end, just two months after launch. Our review of historic ongoing service evidence continues to progress.

Speaker #2: Based on our experience in the second half of the year, we have released a further 25 million pounds from the provision today taking total releases to £190 to £109.5 million for the year.

Speaker #2: We are now deep into the operational delivery phase and are on track to complete the program in 2026. Our cost and efficiency program also made good progress.

Speaker #2: For example, we completed the transition to our new organisational design during the year and we remain on track to remove around £100 million per annum from our addressable cost base by 2027.

Speaker #2: These achievements give us the confidence in the strength of our business and our prospects which has enabled the board to update our shareholder returns guidance going forward, a year earlier than originally anticipated.

Speaker #2: So from 2026, we intend to increase our payout ratio to 70% of the underlying cash result. We anticipate that this will comprise ordinary dividends which will make up at least 40% of the total shareholder returns and the buybacks will make up the difference.

Speaker #2: A different way of thinking about it is that dividends expected to be at least 28% of the underlying cash result and buybacks the remaining 42%.

Speaker #2: That's how you get to 70. Our priorities for 2026 are completing our remaining transformation programs, expanding the range of technology tools—including those which are AI-enabled—and making those available to our advisors, with the goal of helping them to work as efficiently as possible.

Speaker #2: This will give them more time to do what they do best, which is building trust, deepening client relationships, and delivering personalised high-quality advice. We see technology deepening the human advisors not replacing them.

Speaker #2: Accelerating elements of Amplify where we have the capacity to do so later in the year, and we will focus on refreshing our cash proposition and enhancing our high net worth proposition.

Speaker #2: We look to the future with confidence. We have already made changes to the business and we're focused on strengthening and growing SJP over the long term.

Speaker #2: This means we are well positioned to capture the structural market opportunity ahead and deliver for all our stakeholders in 2026 and beyond. With that, I'm very happy to turn to questions.

Speaker #1: Thank you. Our first question comes from Andrew Low from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #3: Hi, thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask about AI and how you see the potential threats to your business. So, I'd love to hear a little bit more about what makes you comfortable regarding the potential threat to growth and pricing power from those who, in time, might be able to offer AI-led financial advice. As a sort of corollary to that, it would be really helpful to hear a bit more colour on the AI tools that are operational today, what we might expect in the next 12 months, and how much this could improve your adviser productivity going forward.

Speaker #3: And the second question was just on the advisor numbers which fell by 0.4% in the second half of 2025. Could you please give a little bit more colour on the productivity of your departing managers and just any comments on the outlook for advisor numbers going forward would be really helpful.

Speaker #2: Right. Andrew, good morning and thank you for those questions. In terms of technology and AI, I think the way that

Speaker #1: That we see technology is really it's an opportunity to strengthen our face to face , advice led model So what we've observed over time , I think , is that while a lot has changed in and around the competitive landscape , what has been central actually is the is the primacy of the advisor client relationship and the longevity of that relationship .

Speaker #1: Because research that we have done and that we talk about in the accounts . And research that others have done effectively emphasize that actually people still value human engagement in making financial decisions They seek personal advice .

Speaker #1: They whether it's around retirement , tax planning and various other things , etc. . And I think when we also think about AI , I think it's also important to bear in mind that advice in the UK is a highly regulated and a high trust service area , and therefore requires the personalization of the suitability and the accountability and human judgment is absolutely core to that .

Speaker #1: Where we see AI can play a very, very positive role is in enhancing advisor productivity and client experience. You'll have seen in the presentation earlier on this morning that we're really using AI tools to give advisors back time.

Operator: Hello, welcome everyone to the St. James's Place 2025 Full Year Results Q&A Session. If you wish to ask a question, please press Star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad now. If for any reason you want to remove yourself from the queue, please press Star followed by 2. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. I will now hand over to Mark FitzPatrick, Chief Executive Officer, to begin.

Speaker #1: And I think that's where the deep vein is going to be for the next few years. For our advisors, for us, and for the whole, and for the whole profession.

Speaker #1: I think the more we can give time back to advisors, to really focus with their clients, is going to be absolutely, absolutely key.

Speaker #1: I think by virtue of our size and scale , Saint James's Place , we've got the opportunity and the connectivity , and we are talking with some of the very biggest players on their thoughts and on what we are doing and how we can simplify and how we can make what we do even better and even more efficient .

Mark FitzPatrick: Thank you, good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Unfortunately, Caroline is unable to be with us this morning due to a family bereavement. Instead, I'm joined by Caroline Waddington, our finance director. Before we open for questions, I'd like to briefly reflect on a year of strong delivery and execution for St. James's Place. We delivered growth in new business, growth in funds under management, and growth in underlying cash results, while at the same time delivering strong returns for our clients. Drawing out some of the results which are new today, the underlying cash results of GBP 462 million, up 3% year-over-year and 4% ahead of consensus. Underlying cash basic EPS of GBP 0.87 per share, up 6% year-over-year.

Speaker #1: And bear in mind as well , that of our 5000 advisors , the vast majority of these folks are phenomenal entrepreneurs , not just in being great advisors , but also in terms of finding solutions in their own businesses and how they make themselves more efficient .

Speaker #1: So within our 5000 advisors , we have some of our of our businesses where they have actually created and built their own technology to improve some of the their efficiency on how they do things .

Speaker #1: And through our oversight, and through our blessing of data protection and everything around that, and security, we're making those and facilitating those to be available to far more partners within St. James's Place.

Mark FitzPatrick: We're returning 50% of the Underlying cash result to shareholders through ordinary dividends and buybacks, and a total of GBP 313 million to be returned to shareholders for 2025. Alongside delivering a strong operational and financial performance, we made good strategic progress. Our simple, comparable charging structure implementation went live smoothly in late summer. The new structure puts our investment performance on a fully comparable footing with the wider market and enabled the successful launch of Polaris Multi-Index. This has broadened client choice and grew to over GBP 1 billion of fund at year-end, just two months after launch. Our review of historic ongoing service evidence continues to progress.

Speaker #1: So the great thing is , is the innovation isn't just happening at the corporate level . It's also happening within the advisor community where they're eating , sleeping , drinking .

Speaker #1: This 24 over seven . So some really , really good ideas coming from them . What we're doing is making sure we we can protect the data , protect the , the the integration and really make sure plugs in place properly with the rest of our with the rest of our kit .

Speaker #1: So at the end of the day , I think AI will enable greater productivity . It'll enable advisors to get back to what they really enjoy doing .

Speaker #1: And it's not the admin they enjoy doing . It's actually being in front of clients . It's finding new clients and serving clients as being there for clients when they when they truly matter .

Speaker #1: So I'm ravaging on , but I'm conscious that this is a big topic and therefore I'm probably going a little bit fuller in the answer just to kind of give everybody a little bit of color in terms of some of the features that we have today , etc.

Mark FitzPatrick: Based on our experience in the second half of the year, we have released a further GBP 25 million from the provision today, taking total releases to GBP 109.5 million for the year. We are now deep into the operational delivery phase and are on track to complete the program in 2026. Our cost and efficiency program also made good progress. For example, we completed the transition to our new organizational design during the year, and we remain on track to remove around GBP 100 million per annum from our addressable cost base by 2027. These achievements give us the confidence in the strength of our business and our prospects, which has enabled the board to update our shareholder returns guidance going forward, a year earlier than originally anticipated.

Mark FitzPatrick: Based on our experience in the H2 of the year, we have released a further GBP 25 million from the provision today, taking total releases to GBP 109.5 million for the year. We are now deep into the operational delivery phase and are on track to complete the program in 2026. Our cost and efficiency program also made good progress. For example, we completed the transition to our new organizational design during the year, and we remain on track to remove around GBP 100 million per annum from our addressable cost base by 2027. These achievements give us the confidence in the strength of our business and our prospects, which has enabled the board to update our shareholder returns guidance going forward, a year earlier than originally anticipated.

Speaker #1: , along the way , we have we have a number of tools that that we're using , whether it's advice Assistant , which , you know , kind of harnesses the data in Salesforce and can produce suggestions on plan wrappers , investment amount , fund selections and various other things .

Speaker #1: A rules based engine based on our advice framework . You know , which has been trained on thousands of recommendations made previously by JP clients .

Speaker #1: And we've seen a very strong take up from from advisors around that , whether it's preparing meetings or whether it's summarizing and listening into meetings with clients , summarizing , converting the meetings into notes that get sent to the client , notes that get sent to the admin , actions to be done .

Mark FitzPatrick: From 2026, we intend to increase our payout ratio to 70% of the Underlying cash result. We anticipate that this will comprise ordinary dividends, which will make up at least 40% of the total shareholder returns, and the buybacks will make up the difference. A different way of thinking about it is that dividend is expected to be at least 28% of the Underlying cash result, and buybacks the remaining 42%. That's how you get to 70. Our priorities for 2026 are completing our remaining transformation programs, expanding the range of technology tools, including those which are AI-enabled, and making those available to our advisors, with the goal of helping them to work as efficiently as possible. This will give them more time to do what they do best, which is building trust, deepening client relationships, and delivering personalized, high-quality advice.

Speaker #1: Those are things that we have trialed extensively, and we're now in the final stages of looking to roll those out across the Partnership as a whole.

Speaker #1: During the course of this year , and then we have something particularly innovatively called chat . SJP , which covers a whole lot of the documents in our advice framework and business submission guides and the like .

Speaker #1: And what that does is enables the power planners and the admin teams , etc. , just to check in on some of the advice that might be given and some of their thinking and some of the plans , just to make sure everything is aligned .

Speaker #1: And what that does is that saves, you know, a huge amount of time for every query that otherwise might be done through a call center.

Speaker #1: And enables the call center operators to really focus on , on considerably more complex matters . So we're trying to introduce we're not trying .

Speaker #1: We are introducing technology throughout the organization . Because I do see that the technology providing us with different hands in terms of what we do , but it's not going to change the face of advice .

Mark FitzPatrick: We see technology deepening the human relationships between clients and advisors, not replacing them. Accelerating elements of Amplify, where we have the capacity to do so later in the year, and we will focus on refreshing our cash proposition and enhancing our high-net-worth proposition. We look to the future with confidence. We have already made changes to the business, and we're focused on strengthening and growing SJP over the long term. This means we are well positioned to capture the structural market opportunity ahead and deliver for all our stakeholders in 2026 and beyond. With that, I'm very happy to turn to questions.

Speaker #1: And then under your , your , your final question on advisor numbers . Yep . Advisor numbers declined modestly in the second half of this year .

Speaker #1: I said back in February last year that we'd be embarking upon an initiative . And what you saw in the second half of last year was the outworkings of some of that , that activity .

Speaker #1: I think it's fair to say that the advisors that have left us as a result of that , their productivity was significantly below average productivity on both gross flows and from a from perspective , which is why you haven't seen any real shift in in productivity .

Operator: Thank you. Our first question comes from Andrew Lowe, from Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #1: If anything , productivity . I can get to that later on . But productivity has been significantly stronger during the course of this year .

Andrew Lowe: Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to ask on AI, and how you see the potential threats from your business. I'd love to hear a little bit more, a bit more about what makes you comfortable about the potential threat to growth and pricing power from competitors, including B2C platforms, who, in time, might be able to offer AI-led financial advice. As a sort of corollary to that, it'd be really helpful to hear a bit more color on the AI tools that are operational today, what we might expect in the next 12 months, and how much this could improve your advisor productivity going forward. The second question was just on the advisor numbers, which fell by 0.4% in the second half of 2025.

Speaker #1: But Andy , thank you for those questions . Sorry . I'll try and be brief for the next few questions .

Speaker #2: Thanks . That's really helpful

Speaker #3: Thank you Our next question comes from Andrew Crean from autonomous . Your line is now open . Please go ahead .

Speaker #4: Hi . Good morning everyone . Just a couple of three questions . Firstly , can you say anything about trading so far in Q 126 ?

Speaker #4: Secondly , your liquidity free liquidity targets ? I just wanted to explore this a bit more . Do you have any targets for group liquidity and the reason I ask is because if I looked at your doubling of profits in 2030 , one's talking about somewhere retaining if you pay out 70% , you're talking about retaining somewhere between 240 and 270 million of profit , which is in line with the amount of group liquidity you currently have .

Andrew Lowe: Could you please give a little bit more color on the productivity of your departing managers, and just any comments on the outlook for advisor numbers going forward would be really helpful.

Speaker #4: I suppose that poses the question whether up the line , once the earnings really get going , whether the 70% is too low and you will just build excess liquidity over time .

Mark FitzPatrick: Okay. Andy, good morning, and thank you for those questions. In terms of technology and AI, I think the way that we see technology is really, it's an opportunity to strengthen our face-to-face advice-led model. What we've observed over time, I think, is that while a lot has changed in and around the competitive landscape, what has been central actually is the primacy of the advisor-client relationship and the longevity of that relationship. Research that we have done and that we talk about in the accounts, and research that others have done, effectively emphasize that actually people still value human engagement in making financial decisions. They seek personal advice. Whether it's around retirement, tax planning, and various other things, et cetera.

Speaker #4: And then a third question is client growth . I think client growth was about 3% . This year or last year . Could you give us a sense as to what you anticipate client growth to , to be like over the next few years ?

Speaker #1: Okay . Andrew . Hi . Good morning . Thanks for those questions . So trading first off in trading we put out our Q4 trading update less than a month ago .

Speaker #1: And I think the team provided a little bit of color about the fact that flows were normalizing . We were seeing flows normalize over that period .

Speaker #1: So I'm not minded to give necessarily a month by month update , but what I would say is we've seen that continue and the partnership is an exceptionally good health .

Mark FitzPatrick: I think when we also think about AI, I think it's also important to bear in mind that advice in the UK is a highly regulated and a high-trust service area. Therefore, it requires the personalization, the suitability, and the accountability, and human judgment is absolutely core to that. Where we see AI can play a very, very positive role is in enhancing advisor productivity and client experience. You'll have seen in the presentation earlier on this morning that we're already using some AI tools to give advisors back time. I think that's where the deep vein is going to be for the next few years for our advisors, for us, and for the whole profession.

Speaker #1: They're all working incredibly hard at the moment . This is a very , very busy time and with tax around five weeks away .

Speaker #1: So there's a huge amount of activity on the go , which is which is very encouraging from a liquidity perspective . So some new disclosure for everyone in the world of liquidity and how we think about liquidity .

Speaker #1: I think it is important for us to be able to make sure we have an appropriate degree of liquidity at the census , support the capital allocation framework , the liquidity levels that we have , we will be considering them on a regular basis , and we will be making our determinations .

Speaker #1: As regards what we do with with that liquidity based on facts and circumstances . At the time . And if we see a an inappropriate build up , then we will it'll get activated through the capital allocation framework along the way , the 70% payout ratio that we've effectively indicated for the for the time being , bring it forward a year .

Mark FitzPatrick: I think the more we can give time back to advisors to really focus with their clients is gonna be absolutely key. I think by virtue of our size and scale, at St. James's Place, we've got the opportunity and the connectivity, and we are talking with some of the very biggest players, on their thoughts and on what we are doing, and how we can simplify, and how we can make what we do even better and even more efficient. Bear in mind as well, that of our 5,000 advisors, the vast majority of these folk are phenomenal entrepreneurs, not just in being great advisors, but also in terms of finding solutions in their own businesses and, how they make themselves more efficient.

Speaker #1: I think is dripping with signaling of confidence in the business and how well the business is performing . And the great progress that we that we have made .

Speaker #1: So we're very pleased to announce that a year early . We're very pleased to have increased the level of the payout . We think the composition , the two sectors of it , in terms of dividend and buyback , are are important and a weighted appropriately .

Speaker #1: And if and as and when that number builds in the fullness of time as I . Said , facts and circumstances will dictate .

Mark FitzPatrick: Within our 5,000 advisors, we have some of our businesses where they have actually created and built their own technology to improve some of their efficiency on how they do things. Through our oversight and through our blessing of data protection and everything around that, and security, we're making those and facilitating those to be available to far more partners within St. James's Place. The great thing is the innovation isn't just happening at the corporate level, it's also happening within the advisor community, where they're eating, sleeping, drinking this 24/7. Some really good ideas coming from them.

Speaker #1: We would expect you should expect to see the 271 number grow as the business grows . We are growing business and 271 for business , with 220 billion and a million clients under under management feels appropriate for this size and the scale in terms , in terms of client growth , really interesting one , Andrew , because client growth is going to become a little more complex as during the course of 27 and onwards , we have a stronger push towards high net worth because with high net worth is going to be less about pure client numbers .

Speaker #1: And it's going to be a real focus on getting clients with larger funds under management, and our advisors doing more with them, and therefore needing to spend a bit more time with them.

Mark FitzPatrick: What we're doing is making sure we can protect the data, protect the integration, and really make sure it plays properly with the rest of our kit. At the end of the day, I think AI will enable greater productivity. It'll enable advisors to get back to what they really enjoy doing. It's not the admin they enjoy doing, it's actually being in front of clients. It's finding new clients, it's serving clients, it's being there for clients when they truly matter. Sorry, I'm rabbiting on, but I'm conscious that this is a big topic, and therefore I'm probably going a little bit fuller in the onset, just to kind of give everybody a little bit of color.

Speaker #1: So that's something that we're thinking about internally . But what I can say is the vast majority of our advisors , when we did a survey with them , the back end of last year , indicated they are expecting client numbers to grow .

Speaker #1: And as is often the case and has been the case with us for some time , the vast majority of our new clients are word of mouth referrals , which I think contributes to a very , very high client retention level and very , very sticky , very sticky relationships , which is which is a great business to be in .

Speaker #1: But thank you for those questions

Speaker #4: Graham , thanks

Mark FitzPatrick: In terms of some of the features that we have today, et cetera, along the way, we have a number of tools that we're using, whether it's a advice assistant, which, you know, kind of harnesses the data in Salesforce and can produce suggestions on plan wrappers, investment amount, fund selections, and various other things. A rules-based engine based on our advice framework, you know, which has been trained on thousands of recommendations made previously by SJP clients. We've seen a very strong take-up from advisors around that.

Speaker #3: Thank you . Our next question comes from Naseem Ahmed from UBS . Your line is now open . Please go ahead .

Speaker #5: Many thanks . Three questions for me . Just firstly following up on AI , you had the charging structure change last year . You had an opportunity to update your tech stack .

Speaker #5: I know there's different tech solutions that you're using across the piece , but I guess the question is , is your tech stack nimble enough to add on these AI , LLM type models ?

Speaker #5: Because, of course, you've got the skill, but with bigger companies, sometimes you've got legacy tech that can't really cope with this.

Mark FitzPatrick: Whether it's preparing meetings or whether it's summarizing and listening into meetings with clients, summarizing, converting the meetings into notes that get sent to the client, notes that get sent to the admin, actions to be done, those are things that we have trialed extensively, and we're now in the final stages of looking to roll those out across the partnership as a whole during the course of this year. We have something particularly innovatively called Chat SJP, which covers a whole lot of the documents in our advice framework and business submission guides and the like. What that does is enables the paraplanners and the admin teams, et cetera, just to check in on some of the advice that might be given and some of their thinking and some of the plans, just to make sure everything's aligned.

Speaker #5: So question number one , are you kind of happy with the with the way your tech stack can adapt to these new new models ?

Speaker #5: Secondly , on complaints , I saw kind of new open complaints . First off 25 were still high relative to history . The kind of stabilizing but to a high level when you expect them to come down .

Speaker #5: And is that putting pressure on kind of your complaints team at the moment ? I know you've recruited quite a lot of people recently , and then finally , on kind of regulation , B2C , simplified advice .

Speaker #5: What are your thoughts around here ? Targeted support as well within that ? And would you kind of look to acquire a business and move into DTC as a result of that ?

Speaker #5: Thank you .

Speaker #1: And Steve , thank you for those questions . AI the simple comparable charging out of a hatred to have tried to weave in all sorts of other changes to what undoubtedly was the largest tech change program that we've had in the history of Saint James's Place .

Mark FitzPatrick: What that does is that saves, you know, a huge amount of time for every query that otherwise might be done through a call center, and enables the call center operators to really focus on considerably more complex matters. We're not trying, we are introducing technology throughout the organization, because I do see that the technology providing us with different hands in terms of what we do, but it's not gonna change the face of advice. Andy, your final question on advisor numbers. Yep, advisor numbers declined modestly in the second half of this year. I said back in February 2023 that we'd be embarking upon an initiative. What you saw in the second half of 2023 was the outworkings of some of that activity.

Mark FitzPatrick: What that does is that saves, you know, a huge amount of time for every query that otherwise might be done through a call center, and enables the call center operators to really focus on considerably more complex matters. We're not trying, we are introducing technology throughout the organization, because I do see that the technology providing us with different hands in terms of what we do, but it's not gonna change the face of advice. Andy, your final question on advisor numbers. Yep, advisor numbers declined modestly in the H2 of this year. I said back in February 2023 that we'd be embarking upon an initiative. What you saw in the H2 of 2023 was the outworkings of some of that activity.

Speaker #1: So on the tech stack , bear in mind that we have a tech stack that includes Salesforce , that includes snowflake , that includes some really , really modern tech that gets updated on a regular basis .

Speaker #1: So it's through that that we're able to kind of plug and play and interact and indeed with one of our advisor firms who's been working on some great kit and has got some great AI kit that helps facilitate and improve efficiency , we're very recently plug that in and got that working well with Salesforce .

Speaker #1: So having done that , we'll be able to roll that out to other elements . And that's given us the confidence that we can plug and play modern kit into into our stack .

Mark FitzPatrick: I think it's fair to say that the advisors that have left us as a result of that, their productivity was significantly below average productivity on both gross flows and from a firm perspective, which is why you haven't seen any real shift in productivity. If anything, productivity, and I can get to that later on, but productivity has been significantly stronger during the course of this year. Andy, thank you for those questions. Sorry, I'll try and be briefer for the next few questions.

Speaker #1: So not particularly worried worried about that . That component on complaints BAU complaints . The business as usual complaint levels are down . What we're seeing is there's still some activity in terms of the the historic evidence review , etc.

Speaker #1: from , you know , some claims management companies . But much , much lower levels , you northern Italy , lower levels and you know , dare I say we are doing more checks and balances in terms of whether the complaints have come in are legitimate complaints .

Andrew Lowe: Thanks. That's really helpful.

Speaker #1: We have some complaints that come in when we write out to the client . They say , yeah , I spoke to them , but I didn't want to complain .

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Green, from Autonomous. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #1: So it's not a legit complaint . And others , you know , kind of aren't even our clients . So we've had a look .

Andrew Green: Good morning, everyone. Just a couple of, three questions. Firstly, can you say anything about trading so far in Q1 2026? Secondly, your liquidity, free liquidity targets. Just wanted to explore this a bit more. Do you have any targets for group liquidity? The reason I ask is because if I looked at your doubling of profits in 2030, one's talking about somewhere between retaining... If you payout 70%, you're talking about retaining somewhere between GBP 240 million and GBP 270 million of profit, which is in line with the amount of group liquidity you currently have.

Speaker #1: We've got a lot of noise in the system , but on the substance we're comfortable that BAU level complaints are are coming down and are coming down to a more normalized level on rigs The government , I think , is and both the government and the regulator are comfortable that there's a lot coming down the road in terms of the mansion House reforms and really want to see how well these land .

Speaker #1: So my discussions with Treasury and with the FCA is, they are very focused on ensuring a successful launch of targeted support in terms of disclosure regimes.

Speaker #1: They're trying to make things simpler , etc. . The retail investment campaign , they're really focused on trying to get more people investing .

Andrew Green: I suppose that poses the question, whether up the line, once the earnings really get going, whether the 70% is too low, and you will just build excess liquidity over time. A third question is client growth. I think client growth was about 3% this year or last year. Could you give us a sense as to what you anticipate client growth to be like over the next few years?

Speaker #1: So it seems a lot more joined up than it might have been in the past . Targeted support isn't really going to be for us by virtue of the nature of how that's going to work .

Speaker #1: I think targeted support is going to be very difficult . If a human has to get involved because a human can't unhear what they've heard , and a human is likely to pick up something that might throw it out of the decision tree .

Speaker #1: That is effectively so key to targeted support. Simplified advice. We are expecting some consultation papers from the regulator and simplified advice later on this year.

Mark FitzPatrick: Okay. Andrew, hi, good morning. Thanks for those questions.

Andrew Green: Morning.

Mark FitzPatrick: First off, in trading, we put out our Q4 trading update less than a month ago, and I think the team provided a little bit of color about the fact that flows were normalizing. We were seeing flows normalize over that period. I'm not minded to give necessarily a month-by-month running update, but what I would say is we've seen that continue, and the partnership is in exceptionally good health. They're all working incredibly hard at the moment. This is a very, very busy time, and with tax year-end five weeks away, so there's a huge amount of activity on the go, which is very encouraging. From a liquidity perspective, so some new disclosure for everyone in the world of liquidity and how we think about liquidity.

Speaker #1: We have been in contact with them . That is likely to be a lot more relevant to us . A key component of that is ensuring that if and when simplified advice comes out , it's done in a way that is economically viable for an an advisor to be able to engage with somebody without doing a full fact find .

Speaker #1: So there's still quite a lot of issues that need to be worked through . But the encouraging thing is , is that the regulator has demonstrated and government and demonstrated a willingness to engage with industry and listen , and with trade bodies and , you know , take views on .

Speaker #1: So I'm cautiously optimistic that if this comes through , it should come through in a good guide . But there's there's lots to do around that particular patch as against DTC , if you think of what our underlying purpose is , which effectively is to provide invaluable advice .

Mark FitzPatrick: I think it is important for us to be able to make sure we have an appropriate degree of liquidity at the census to support the capital allocation framework. The liquidity levels that we have, we will be considering them on a regular basis, and we will be making our determinations as regards what we do with that liquidity, based on facts and circumstances at the time. If we see an inappropriate buildup, then it'll get activated through the capital allocation framework along the way. The 70% payout ratio that we've effectively indicated for the time being, bring it forward a year, I think is dripping with signaling of confidence in the business and how well the business is performing and the great progress that we have made.

Speaker #1: Therefore I don't think kind of a pure DTC play is something that's on the strategy . When you think that only 9% of the of adults in the UK take advice today , the market opportunity is so big for all of us in the UK .

Speaker #1: I truly believe it is one of the really few growth areas in financial services in the UK . The element of wealth , getting people to invest .

Speaker #1: So if government , the regulator , we all the players in the sector , DTC or otherwise are getting people to invest rather than save , that's going to be fantastic because there are three big gaps in the UK economy .

Speaker #1: There's an advice gap, there's an effective investing gap, and there's a retirement gap. And we've got too much saved, under-invested.

Speaker #1: We have too few people taking advice and we all know we're into a deep in a DC world rather than a DB world .

Mark FitzPatrick: We're very pleased to announce that a year early. We're very pleased to have increased the level of the payout. We think the composition, the two sectors of it, in terms of dividend and buyback are important and are weighted appropriately. And if, and as and when that number builds in the fullness of time, as I said, facts and circumstances will dictate. You should expect to see the GBP 271 number grow as the business grows. We are a growing business, and GBP 271 for a business with GBP 220 billion and 1 million clients under management, feels appropriate for this size and this scale.

Speaker #1: And I don't think society is truly understood . The risks that they are taking on themselves and their need to prepare for their retirement in a more fulsome fashion than they're doing today .

Speaker #1: So I think there's lots of opportunity for us all to actually grow very , very successful businesses . And I think we're going to stick to our knitting in terms of the advice piece Thank you .

Speaker #5: Thank you very much

Speaker #3: Thank you . Our next question comes from Ben Bathurst from RBC Capital Markets . Your line is now open . Please go ahead .

Mark FitzPatrick: In terms of client growth, really interesting one, Andrew, because client growth is going to become a little more complex as during the course of 2027 and onwards, we have a stronger push towards high-net-worth. Because with high-net-worth, it's gonna be less about pure client numbers, and it's going to be a real focus on getting clients with larger funds under management, and our advisors doing more with them and therefore needing to spend a bit more time with them. That's something that we're thinking about internally. What I can say is the vast majority of our advisors, when we did a survey with them, the back end of last year, indicated they are expecting client numbers to grow.

Speaker #6: Thank you . Good morning . I've got questions in three areas . If I may as well . Firstly Mark , in your pre-recorded remarks , you mentioned you'll be looking to improve reporting of financial performance .

Speaker #6: I think you said before half year 2026 or 4 half year 2026 . I just wondered if you could give more details on the scope of that project and if it's going to extend to making changes to the underlying cash disclosure .

Speaker #6: Then secondly , on flows , you saw fit to comment that outflows have normalised at the end of Q4 and into Q1 . Just to clarify , does that mean a return to the levels of outflows as a percentage of AUM that you saw in the first three quarters of FY 25 , and sort of related to that , just on the pensions flows outlook , we're obviously edging towards the 2027 date for pensions to fall into the net for inheritance tax .

Mark FitzPatrick: As is often the case, and has been the case with us for some time, the vast majority of our new clients are word-of-mouth referrals, which I think contributes to a very high client retention level, and very sticky relationships, which is a great business to be in. Thank you for those questions.

Speaker #6: I wondered if you started to see any differences in the typical advice that you're delivering to older clients around keeping funds in the pension wrapper , and if we should really expect withdrawal rates from pensions to tick up over the next year or two , and in light of those changes , thank you , Ben .

Caroline Waddington: Great. Thanks.

Andrew Green: Great. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Nasib Ahmed, from UBS. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #1: Thank you . Three really interesting questions . For the first question , I'm going to hand over to my my partner in crime , Charles Wood .

Nasib Ahmed: Morning, thanks. 3 questions for me. Just firstly, following up on AI. You had the charging structure change last year. You had an opportunity to update your tech stack. I know there's different tech solutions that you're using across the piece, but I guess the question is: Is your tech stack nimble enough to add on these AI, LLM-type models? Because, of course, you've got the scale. With bigger companies, sometimes you've got legacy tech that can't really cope with this. Question number one, are you kind of happy with the way your tech stack can adapt to these new models? Secondly, on complaints, I saw kind of new open complaints for first half 2025 were still high. Relative to history, they're kind of stabilizing, but to a high level.

Speaker #1: Charles .

Speaker #7: Hello , Ben . Very good to chat about this . Yeah , this has been an exciting project that we've been doing over the course of the last year .

Speaker #7: You'll have seen some of the , the output emerging . So we streamlined our financial review at the half year . We've done that again at the end of the year .

Speaker #7: And we've introduced new capital and liquidity metrics , new section on that . And hopefully that answers some of the questions that were rising .

Speaker #7: The the implementation of the simple comparable charges , which happened in late summer . That was another important building block . And so building on that , we have been we've been sorting out what what the reporting should look like .

Speaker #7: And we are expecting to to share that with you , certainly for the half year . And expect to share that with you all probably later in Q2 , possibly , possibly May might be the right sort of time for doing that .

Nasib Ahmed: When do you expect them to come down, and is that putting pressure on kind of your complaints team at the moment? I know you recruited quite a lot of people recently. Then finally, on kind of regulation, D2C, simplified advice, what are your thoughts around here, targeted support as well within that? Would you kind of look to acquire a business and move into D2C as a result of that? Thank you.

Speaker #1: Charles . Thank you . Ben . In terms of flows , I don't think I'd necessarily change your models based on what we saw in Q3 , Q4 .

Speaker #1: I think I'd look at more the the long term element in terms of in terms of flows and in terms of pensions . I think from memory about historically , about 4% of individuals just across the market paid inheritance tax .

Mark FitzPatrick: Nasib, thank you for those questions. AI, the simple comparable charging, I'd have hated to have tried to weave in all sorts of other changes to what undoubtedly was the largest tech change program that we've had in the history of St. James's Place. On the tech stack, bear in mind that we have a tech stack that includes Salesforce, that includes Snowflake, that includes some really, really modern tech that gets updated on a regular basis. It's through that we're able to kind of plug and play and interact. Indeed, with one of our advisor firms, who's been working on some great kit and has got some great AI kit that helps facilitate and improve efficiency. We've very recently plugged that in and got that working well with Salesforce.

Speaker #1: And I think the ONS , in light of the changes , the government brought about , thought that that might go up by a percent and a half , maybe 2% .

Speaker #1: So call it a 6% . So it's not for everyone . Thankfully . But what we are seeing , I think , is that investment bonds becoming a lot more attractive now .

Speaker #1: Pensions still being an incredibly valuable vehicle for people to invest in up to a certain level . And while they're working and what we're seeing is people now starting to utilize their pensions rather than considering them as a pure investment vehicle that they might have had as a generational wealth transfer vehicle .

Mark FitzPatrick: Having done that, we'll be able to roll that out to other elements, and that's given us the confidence that we can plug and play modern kit into our stack. Not particularly worried about that component. On complaints, BAU complaints, the business-as-usual complaint levels are down. What we're seeing is there's still some activity in terms of the historic evidence review, et cetera, from, you know, some claims management companies, but much, much lower levels, you know, inordinately lower levels. And, you know, dare I say, we are doing more checks and balances in terms of whether the complaints that come in are legitimate complaints.

Speaker #1: So the advice is shifting . It's a very , very complex area . I know our team deeply engaged with government and the regulators working through how those changes need to come through and making sure the changes don't cross over with one another .

Speaker #1: But we do expect, actually, pensions to continue to be important. But for those older clients, we expect to see them drawing down on pensions, probably in a slightly stronger way than they might have originally.

Mark FitzPatrick: We have some complaints that come in, when we write out to the client, they say, Yeah, I spoke to them, but I didn't want to complain, so it's not a legit complaint. Others, you know, kind of, aren't even our clients. We've got a lot of noise in the system, but on the substance, we're comfortable that BAU-level complaints are coming down and are coming down to a more normalized level. On regs, the government, I think, both the government and the regulator are comfortable that there's a lot coming down the road in terms of the Mansion House reforms and really wanna see how well these land. My discussions with Treasury and with the FCA, is they are very focused on ensuring a successful launch of targeted support.

Speaker #1: But then I would expect them to be leaving some of the other investments alone , and we might start to see some of those withdrawal rates start to start to improve along the way .

Speaker #1: So, it's going to be fluid. We need to see how it pans out. My big, my big request of government of late is when the next budget comes up.

Speaker #1: Please make sure that you are proactive in saying we're not looking to change pensions again, because we cannot have a third year of further speculation.

Speaker #1: So get out of the blocks and just try and close that early as possible . Please . Thanks , Ben

Speaker #6: Thank you for that

Speaker #3: Thank you. Our next question comes from Enrico Bolzoni from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Mark FitzPatrick: In terms of disclosure regimes, they're trying to make things simpler, et cetera. The Retail Investment Campaign, they're really focused on trying to get more people investing, so it seems a lot more joined up than it might have been in the past. targeted support isn't really gonna be for us, by virtue of the nature of how that's going to work. I think targeted support is gonna be very difficult if a human has to get involved, because a human can't unhear what they've heard, and a human is likely to pick up something that might throw it out of the decision tree that is effectively so key to targeted support. Simplified advice. We are expecting some consultation papers from the regulator on simplified advice later on this year. We have been in contact with them.

Speaker #8: Yeah . Good morning . Thanks for taking my questions . So sorry to go back again to the AI topic , but I have one follow up question , if I may .

Speaker #8: So I think there is no pushback on the argument that AI can dramatically improve advisor productivity, and do wonders internally in terms of reducing costs, so on and so forth.

Speaker #8: I guess my my concern , which I suspect is shared by a portion of the market , is more what the impact is going to be on , perhaps the future cohort of clients .

Speaker #8: So maybe those that , you know , in theory would would pick up advice in ten years from now . Let's let's make an example .

Speaker #8: In the UK, the majority of people pick up a financial advisor when they are approaching their retirement age. So I suspect people that are in their 50s.

Speaker #8: So the concern I have is if these people that now are using DTC platforms , which is another where , by the way , you don't want to go will be gradually see the benefit of AI in their existing DTC usage .

Mark FitzPatrick: That is likely to be a lot more relevant to us. A key component of that is ensuring that if and when simplified advice comes out, it's done in a way that is economically viable for an advisor to be able to engage with somebody without doing a full fact-find. There's still quite a lot of issues that need to be worked through, but the encouraging thing is that the regulator has demonstrated, and government have demonstrated a willingness to engage with industry and listen, and with trade bodies and, you know, take views on. I'm cautiously optimistic that if this comes through, it should come through in a good guise, but there's lots to do around that particular patch.

Speaker #8: Is there not a risk that these clients , when they reach the age where , in theory , they should pick up and historically they would have picked up financial advisor when they're in their late 50s , might decide not to do it because by the time that's going to happen , it's going to be in ten years time .

Speaker #8: They will just have, like, an amazing AI proposition within their DTC platform. So, are you concerned by that? And would you consider being a bit more explicit in guiding your advisors to recruit, or to use that additional capacity freed by AI, to recruit younger clients?

Mark FitzPatrick: As against D2C, if you think of what our underlying purpose is, which effectively is to provide invaluable advice, therefore, I don't think kind of a pure D2C play is something that's on the strategy. When you think that only 9% of adults in the UK take advice today, the market opportunity is so big for all of us in the UK. I truly believe it is one of the really few growth areas in financial services in the UK, the element of wealth, getting people to invest. If government, the regulator, we, all the players in the sector, D2C or otherwise, are getting people to invest rather than save, that's gonna be fantastic. Because there are three big gaps in the UK economy. There's an advice gap, there's effectively an investing gap, and there's a retirement gap.

Speaker #8: So get them when they are very young to to avoid this risk of not getting them at all . So that's my first question .

Speaker #8: And the second question is on the Polaris index range . I was wondering if you can give us a maybe an update , some color in terms of what the appetite has been .

Speaker #8: If you are seeing clients , perhaps switching out of their active proposition and into passive , or if mainly this is appealing to to clients that put fresh money into the passive range and they don't really switch from their existing investments into into passive .

Speaker #8: Thank you .

Speaker #1: Enrico , hi , good to chat to you again . Really interesting point in terms of your scenario , in terms of AI , just a couple of useful facts just to share with you by virtue , I think by virtue of the fact that our average advisor is considerably younger than the average advisor in the market , actually , what we're finding is the average age of our new clients is actually coming down So over a third of our new clients are under 40 years old , which is fantastic .

Mark FitzPatrick: We've got too much saved, underinvested, we have too few people taking advice, and we all know we're into a DC world rather than the DB world. I don't think society has truly understood the risks that they are taking on themselves, and their need to prepare for their retirement in a more fulsome fashion than they're doing today. I think there's lots of opportunity for us all to actually grow very, very successful businesses, and I think we're gonna stick to our knitting in terms of the advice piece. Thank you, Nancy.

Speaker #1: So we are effectively the advisors are effectively ahead of this issue and building in a fantastic pipeline of future relationships By engaging with with clients at a younger age , because it's not just about the what do I do when I retire and how do I prepare for accumulation ?

Caroline Waddington: Thank you very much.

Nasib Ahmed: Thank you very much.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Ben Bathurst from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #1: It's getting them to do the right things and getting the right behaviours in place . As my 17 year old son said , dad SJP , it sounds like you guys are financial .

Ben Bathurst: Thank you. Good morning. I've got questions in three areas, if I may, as well. Firstly, Mark, in your pre-recorded remarks, you mentioned you'll be looking to improve reporting of financial performance. I think you said before half year 2026 or before half year 2026. I just wondered if you'd give more details on the scope of that project, and if it's going to extend to making changes to the underlying cash disclosure. Secondly, on flows, you saw fit to comment that outflows have normalized at the end of Q4 and into Q1. Just to clarify, does that mean a return to the levels of outflows as a percentage of AUM that you saw in the first three quarters of FY 2025?

Speaker #1: Pete's financial, physical trainers. You get people to do what they should do—when left to their own devices, they may not do it.

Speaker #1: So I think the element of we're we're getting more and more younger clients . Our advisors younger , which is helpful and also very helpful in terms of their comfort around using new tech as well .

Speaker #1: And I think we see that quite a few of our clients actually have business with DTC, as well as having business with us.

Speaker #1: So share of wallet has grown a little bit over the course of the last year . On average . I think we're about 50 , 55% or thereabouts , but it's so it's not 100% .

Ben Bathurst: Sort of related to that, just on the pensions flows outlook, we're obviously edging towards the 2027 date for pensions to fall into the net for Inheritance Tax. I wondered if you started to see any differences in the typical advice that you're delivering to older clients around keeping funds in the pension wrapper, and if we should really expect withdrawal rates from pensions to tick up over the next year or 2 in light of those changes. Thank you.

Speaker #1: People have money in DTC , but they understand what they get from Saint James's Place , what they get from the from the advisor , etc.

Speaker #1: . And in time , what we see is actually more and more of that money coming in . The longer somebody is with Saint James's place , the more money tends to come in to Saint James's Place and the share of wallet tends to grow rather than stagnate because they just see the value of what's there .

Mark FitzPatrick: Ben, thank you. 3 really interesting questions. For the 1st question, I'm gonna hand over to my partner in crime, Caroline Waddington. Charles?

Speaker #1: And to some extent, that talks a little bit about Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index, effectively. What it is, is providing clients with a broader range of options where there is something that is a little bit different from the conventional Polaris.

Caroline Waddington: Hello, Ben. Very good to chat about this. Yeah, this has been an exciting project that we've been doing over the course of the last year. You'll have seen some of the output emerging. We streamlined our financial review at the half year. We've done that again at the end of the year, and we've introduced new capital and liquidity metrics. New section on that, and hopefully, that answered a number of the questions that were rising. The implementation of the Simple Comparable Charges, which happened in late summer, that was another important building block.

Charles Wood: Hello, Ben. Very good to chat about this. Yeah, this has been an exciting project that we've been doing over the course of the last year. You'll have seen some of the output emerging. We streamlined our financial review at the half year. We've done that again at the end of the year, and we've introduced new capital and liquidity metrics. New section on that, and hopefully, that answered a number of the questions that were rising. The implementation of the Simple Comparable Charges, which happened in late summer, that was another important building block.

Speaker #1: What we're seeing today is we're seeing new clients , new money coming into that . We are also seeing a little bit of switching from the existing funds into Polaris Multi-index .

Speaker #1: And I think the reason number folks like that is they like the the ongoing asset allocation , the ongoing rebalancing that happens along the way at an incredibly attractive price point for the client .

Caroline Waddington: Building on that, we've been sorting out what the reporting should look like, and we are expecting to share that with you, certainly for the half year, and expect to share that with you all, probably later in Q2. Possibly May might be the right sort of time for doing that.

Charles Wood: Building on that, we've been sorting out what the reporting should look like, and we are expecting to share that with you, certainly for the half year, and expect to share that with you all, probably later in Q2. Possibly May might be the right sort of time for doing that.

Speaker #1: So it's early days in Florence. Multi-index is very similar to what we saw on the main Polaris when that launched. We saw a lot of switching initially, and then we saw a lot of new money coming in as actually the investment performance kicked in and people just had more and more confidence about it.

Speaker #1: I am delighted at what the guys have done . I think it's fantastic to , in the first two months , have gathered effectively £1 billion worth of assets into , into Multi-index and really looking forward to seeing the growth of that because we can now offer clients a broader range of products across the way .

Mark FitzPatrick: Caroline, thank you. Ben, in terms of flows, I don't think I'd necessarily change your models based on what we saw in Q3, Q4. I think I'd look at more the long-term element in terms of in terms of flows. In terms of pensions, I think from memory, about historically, about 4% of individuals just across the market paid Inheritance Tax. I think the ONS, in light of the changes the government brought about, thought that that might go up by 1.5%, maybe 2%, so may call it 6%. It's not for everyone, thankfully. What we are seeing, I think, is that investment bonds becoming a lot more attractive now.

Speaker #1: But thank you for those great questions, Enrico.

Speaker #8: For the caller

Speaker #3: Thank you . Our next question comes from Gregory Simpson from BNP Paribas . Your line is now open . Please go ahead .

Speaker #9: Yeah . Hi there . Good morning . Two questions on my side . Firstly , wondering if you could share any comments on how you're seeing advisors and clients behave with the new fee structure .

Speaker #9: And if you're seeing any differences versus the old model in terms of inflow, gross inflows, and productivity, just be aware that Q4 is a bit unusual with the budget in terms of reading anything into the flows. That was the first question.

Mark FitzPatrick: still being an incredibly valuable vehicle for people to invest in, up to a certain level and while they're working. What we're seeing is people now starting to utilize their pensions rather than considering them as a pure investment vehicle that they might have had as a generational wealth transfer vehicle. The advice is shifting. It's a very, very complex area. I know our team are deeply engaged with government and the regulators, working through how those changes need to come through and making sure the changes don't cross over with one another. We do expect, actually, pensions to continue to be important. For those older clients, we expect to see them drawing down on pensions, probably in a slightly stronger way than they might have originally.

Speaker #9: Secondly, can you provide a bit more of an update on the high net worth push? You know, what's the timeline?

Speaker #9: Would you have advisors that are more directly employed by SJP in this model ? And what do you need to add on the product and investment proposition side ?

Speaker #9: Thank you

Speaker #1: Great , Greg , thanks for those questions . In terms of the new fee structure , I think speaking to clients , they are candidly wondering what all the big fuss was about from their side .

Speaker #1: They're seeing it very much in line with everything else that's out there in the marketplace. So they think it's from a client side.

Speaker #1: They think it's a lot simpler . The advisors are , as I mentioned , I think earlier on , are incredibly busy , engaging with with clients .

Speaker #1: So they are absolutely connecting very , very busy . You know , case count is , you know , very strong at the moment .

Mark FitzPatrick: I would expect them to be leaving some of the other investments alone, and we might start to see some of those withdrawal rates start to improve along the way. It's gonna be fluid. We need to see how it pans out. My big request of government of late is when the next budget comes up, please make sure that you are proactive in saying we're not looking to change pensions again, because we cannot have a third year of further speculation. Get out of the blocks and just try and close that down early as possible, please. Thanks, Ben.

Speaker #1: So it's all looking . You know , that the fee structure is the old fee structure is in the history books . We're now kind of level pegging with with everyone else in terms of the high net worth push , the high net worth push , I think is is one where I'm really , really excited and really interested for us to spend more time , more energy in the element of the high net worth aspect is that we later on this year , we are looking to make even more impact on it .

Caroline Waddington: Thank you for that.

Ben Bathurst: Thank you for that.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Enrico Bolzoni from JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #1: We've recruited some new talent . We're looking to streamline and improve the service that is available for both our advisors and clients in this area .

Enrico Bolzoni: Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Sorry to go back again to the AI topic, but I have one follow-up question, if I may. I think there is no pushback on the argument that AI can dramatically improve advisor productivity and do wonders internally in terms of reducing costs, so on and so forth. I guess my concern, which I suspect is shared by a portion of the market, is more what the impact is gonna be on perhaps the future cohort of clients. Maybe those that, you know, in theory, would pick up advice in 10 years from now. Let's make an example. In the UK, the majority of people pick up financial advice when they are approaching their retirement age, so I suspect people that are in their fifties.

Speaker #1: We have, I think now, as at year end, 10% of our FUM is effectively in the high net worth segment.

Speaker #1: So, slight increase on last year. It is the team are working very closely with some of our advisors who specialize in the high net worth area we had.

Speaker #1: We've had some offsites exploring. What do we need to do about product range? What do we need to do about service?

Speaker #1: What do we need to do about our brand? So we're clear on what we need to do? We're now just getting things done.

Speaker #1: We're recruiting , and as I said , additional people and we're equipping the people in that regard . And I'm quite excited about what we might do around this space .

Enrico Bolzoni: The concern I have is if these people that now are using D2C platforms, which is another where, by the way, you don't want to go, will gradually see the benefit of AI in their existing D2C usage. Is there not a risk that these clients, when they reach the age where in theory they should pick up, and historically they would have picked up financial advice when they're in their late fifties, might decide not to do it because by the time that's gonna happen, it's gonna be in 10 years' time, they will just have like an amazing AI proposition within their D2C platform? Are you concerned by that?

Speaker #1: I think there are a lot of advisors who are very interested in being more engaged in this space. A lot of them are very engaged in the space.

Speaker #1: I think if we can provide them with greater support, they'll be able to do even more in and around this space.

Speaker #1: And they're all looking to grow their businesses. So I think that's probably the route in, rather than us trying to kind of think we're going to have our own employee advisers focusing on the high net worth space.

Speaker #1: So I'm excited about it . In reality , I think it will be the second half of this year that we really start to lean into it .

Enrico Bolzoni: Would you consider, be a bit more explicit in guiding your advisor to recruit, so to use the additional capacity freed by AI to recruit younger clients, so get them when they are very young, to avoid this risk of not getting them at all? That's my first question. The second question is, on the Polaris index range. I was wondering if you can give us, maybe an update, some color in terms of, what the appetite has been, if you're seeing clients perhaps switching out of their active proposition and into passive, or if mainly this is appealing, to clients that put fresh money into the passive range and they don't really switch from their existing investment, into passive? Thank you.

Speaker #1: Even even further . It is part of the amplify phase of the strategy . But we're I have capacity . I'm looking to try and apply it to the high net worth opportunity , because I think it is so .

Speaker #1: It is so real , so you've you've picked on a on a real pet topic of mine . Thank you .

Speaker #10: Thank you

Speaker #3: Thank you. Our next question comes from Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Speaker #11: Thank you very much . And good morning . Three questions from my side as well . The first one , Vanguard announced yesterday that they are launching a new model , Portfolio Solutions product in conjunction with Wellington .

Mark FitzPatrick: Enrico, hi. Good to chat to you again. Really interesting point in terms of your scenario in terms of AI. Just a couple of useful facts just to share with you. By virtue, I think by virtue of the fact that our average advisor is considerably younger than the average advisor in the market, actually what we're finding is the average age of our new clients is actually coming down. Over a third of our new clients are under 40 years old, which is fantastic. We are effectively, the advisors are effectively ahead of this issue and building in a fantastic pipeline of future relationships by engaging with clients at a younger age.

Speaker #11: How do some games places , product range as differentiated relative to the other model portfolio solutions available in the market , and perhaps specifically referencing the Polaris Multi-index that you mentioned in your presentation .

Speaker #11: Second question on the historic ongoing service evidence review , you mentioned that you were complete , that in 2026 , does that mean that we can completely put it to bed in 27 , or is there a statute of limitations that needs to run before you will be able to finalize how much of the provision is needed then the last one , I a very a very topical sort of questions this morning .

Mark FitzPatrick: It's not just about the, what do I do when I retire, and how do I prepare for decumulation. It's getting them to do the right things and getting the right behaviors in place. As my 17-year-old son said, Dad, SJP, it sounds like you guys are financial PTs, financial physical trainers. You get people to do what they should do, when left to own devices, they may not do it. I think the element of, we're getting more and more younger clients. Our advisors are younger, which is helpful and also very helpful in terms of their comfort around using new tech as well. I think we see that quite a few of our clients actually have business with D2C, as well as having business with us.

Speaker #11: But with Polaris multi-index being a lower cost offering and with AI potentially lowering costs , do you see future growth coming from maintaining margins , or do you do you believe that margins may be compressed ?

Speaker #11: And would you be looking to grow mainly from increased customer volumes? Thank you.

Speaker #1: Okay . All right NPS products . That are out there , there are a number of products that are that are out there .

Speaker #1: So Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index are fund of funds. They're not really the same as a model portfolio service. So, rebalancing in an NPS will effectively crystallise capital gains tax.

Mark FitzPatrick: Share of wallet has grown a little bit over the course of the last year. On average, I think we're about 50%, 55% or thereabouts. It's not 100%. People have money in D2C, but they understand what they get from St. James's Place, what they get from the, from the advisor, et cetera. In time, what we see is actually more and more of that money coming in. The longer somebody is with St. James's Place, the more money tends to come in to St. James's Place, and the share of wallet tends to grow rather than stagnate, because they just see the value of what's there. To some extent, that talks a little bit of Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index.

Speaker #1: And that wouldn't happen in a in a fund of funds . Hence less frequent rebalancing in a in a in a NPS as against the rebalancing that we can do in the in the Polaris and Polaris Multi-index range .

Speaker #1: So we're more dynamic and therefore we believe in a world that is changing as rapidly as it is . We think that is an advantage for Polaris and PMI .

Speaker #1: It looks like , you know , the latest NPS is out there . It's kind of got a mixture of kind of active and passive etc.

Speaker #1: along the way . And effectively at the moment , Polaris is , you know , kind of we have a Polaris where there is some kind of systemic , systematic activities and normal fluorescent Polaris Multi-index work through 14 index funds .

Mark FitzPatrick: Effectively, what it is providing clients with a broader range of options, where there is something that is a little bit different from the conventional Polaris. What we're seeing to date, is we're seeing new clients, new money coming into that. We are also seeing a little bit of switching from the existing funds into Polaris Multi-Index. I think the reason a number of folks like that is they like the ongoing asset allocation, the ongoing rebalancing that happens along the way, at an incredibly attractive price point for the client. It's early days in Polaris Multi-Index. It's very similar to what we saw on the main Polaris when that launched.

Speaker #1: So there's a blend is probably at a at a more attractive price point . Ultimately , I think in terms of product innovation , what our team have been able to demonstrate is a great ability to innovate , come up with solutions that work well for clients .

Mark FitzPatrick: We saw a lot of switching initially, and then we saw a lot of new money coming in, as actually the investment performance kicked in, and people just had more and more confidence about it. I am delighted of what the guys have done. I think it's fantastic to, in the first two months, have gathered, effectively, GBP 1 billion worth of assets into Polaris Multi-Index. Really looking forward to seeing the growth of that, because we can now offer clients a broader range of product across the way. Thank you for those great questions, Enrico.

Larissa van Deventer: For the caller.

Enrico Bolzoni: For the caller.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Gregory Simpson, from BNP Paribas. The line is now open, please go ahead.

Gregory Simpson: Yeah, hi there. Good morning. Two questions on my side. Firstly, wondering if you could share any comments on how you're seeing advisors and clients behave with the new fee structure, and if you're seeing any differences versus the old model in terms of inflows, gross inflows, and productivity? Just the way that Q4 is a bit unusual with the budget, does it read anything into the flows? First question. Secondly, can you provide a bit more of an update on the high-net-worth push? You know, what's the kind of timeline? Would you have advisors that are more directly employed by SJP in this model? What do you need to add on the product and investment proposition side? Thank you.

Mark FitzPatrick: Great. Greg, thanks for those questions. In terms of the new fee structure, I think speaking to clients, they are candidly wondering what all the big fuss was about. From their side, they're seeing it very much in line with everything else that's out there in the marketplace. From a client side, they think it's a lot simpler. The advisors, as I mentioned, I think earlier on, are incredibly busy engaging with clients. They are absolutely connecting, very, very busy. You know, case count is, you know, very strong at the moment. It's all looking, you know, that the fee structure is the old fee structure is in the history books.

Mark FitzPatrick: We're now kind of level pegging with everyone else. In terms of the high-net-worth push, the high-net-worth push, I think, is one where I'm really excited and really interested for us to spend more time, more energy in. The element of the high-net-worth aspect is that we, later on this year, we are looking to make even more impact on it. We've recruited some new talent. We're looking to streamline and improve the service that is available for both our advisors and clients in this area. We have, I think now, as at year-end, 10% of our firm is effectively in the high-net-worth segments, a slight increase on last year.

Mark FitzPatrick: It is, the team are working very closely with some of our advisors who specialize in the high-net-worth area. We've had some offsites exploring, what do we need to do about product range? What do we need to do about service? What do we need to do about our brand? We're clear on what we need to do, we're now just getting things done. We're recruiting, and as I said, additional people. We're equipping the people in that regard. I'm quite excited about what we might do around this space. I think there are a lot of our advisors who are very interested in being more engaged in this space. A lot of them are very engaged in the space.

Mark FitzPatrick: I think if we can provide them with greater support, they'll be able to do even more in and around this space, and they're all looking to grow their businesses. I think that's probably the route in, rather than us trying to kind of think we're gonna have our own employed advisors focusing on the high-net-worth space. I'm excited about it. In reality, I think it'll be the second half of this year that we really start to lean into it even further. It is part of the Amplify phase of the strategy, but wherever I have capacity, I'm looking to try and apply it to the high-net-worth opportunity, because I think it is so real.

Mark FitzPatrick: I think if we can provide them with greater support, they'll be able to do even more in and around this space, and they're all looking to grow their businesses. I think that's probably the route in, rather than us trying to kind of think we're gonna have our own employed advisors focusing on the high-net-worth space. I'm excited about it. In reality, I think it'll be the H2 of this year that we really start to lean into it even further. It is part of the Amplify phase of the strategy, but wherever I have capacity, I'm looking to try and apply it to the high-net-worth opportunity, because I think it is so real.

Mark FitzPatrick: You've picked on a real pet topic of mine.

Gregory Simpson: Thank you.

Mark FitzPatrick: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Larissa van Deventer from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Larissa van Deventer: Thank you very much, and good morning. Three questions from my side as well. The first one, Vanguard announced yesterday that they are launching a new model portfolio solutions product in conjunction with Wellington. How do you see St. James's Place's product range as differentiated relative to the other model portfolio solutions available in the market? Perhaps specifically referencing the Polaris Multi-Index that you mentioned in your presentation. Second question, on the historic ongoing service evidence review, you mentioned that you will complete that in 2026. Does that mean that we can completely put it to bed in 2027, or is there a statute of limitations that needs to run before you'll be able to finalize how much of the provision is needed?

Larissa van Deventer: The last one, AI, a very topical source of questions this morning. With Polaris Multi-Index being a lower cost offering and with AI potentially lowering costs, do you see future growth coming from maintaining margins, or do you believe that margins may be compressed, and would you be looking to grow mainly from increased customer volumes? Thank you.

Mark FitzPatrick: Okay. All right. MPS products that are out there. There are a number of MPS products that are out there. Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index are fund of funds. They're not really the same as a model portfolio service. Rebalancing in an MPS will effectively crystallize capital gains tax, and that wouldn't happen in a fund of funds, hence, less frequent rebalancing in an MPS as against the rebalancing that we can do in the Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index range. We're more dynamic and therefore, we believe in a world that is changing as rapidly as it is. We think that is an advantage for Polaris and PMI.

Mark FitzPatrick: It looks like, you know, the latest MPSes out there has kind of got a mixture of kind of active and passive, etc., along the way. Effectively, at the moment, Polaris is, you know, kind of, we have a Polaris where there is some kind of systemic, systematic activities in normal Polaris and Polaris Multi-Index work through 14 index funds. As a blend is probably at a very, at a more attractive price point. Ultimately, I think in terms of product innovation, what our team have been able to demonstrate is a great ability to innovate, come up with solutions that work well for clients. There's a real client advisor demand and pull. It's been great to hear some advisors saying, Mark

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