St James's Place to raise up to £1bn to buy out partner firms - report

(Sharecast News) - St James's Place is considering raising up to £1bn by the end of the decade, it was reported on Friday, to help support succession plans. The wealth management firm told the Financial Times it wanted to use the funds to buy up the businesses of retiring partners. The blue chip's 914,000 clients are spread across SJP's network of 2,622 partner firms.

Iain Rayner, chief operating officer, told the FT: "We have been thinking about how we increasingly employ equity alongside debt to help with succession planning.

"Providing continuity of client servicing if and when advisers retire and being able to occasionally move client relationships around the partnership is really important to us."

SJP has a network of 4,800 self-employed financial advisers who, when they retire, usually sell on their book of clients to other advisors in the network.

SJP guarantees loans taken out by those advisors to buy books. But higher interest rates and the increasing regulatory requirements have dampened appetite to take out loans, the newspaper noted.

However, Rayner said: "We see pressure from higher interest rates, just like any other business, but there is nothing causing us alarm across our lending book."

He also said 2023 was on track to be one of its largest ever for partner loans.

As at 0900 GMT, shares in SJP were down 1% at 702p.