St James’s Place is set to overhaul its controversial pay and cruise and cufflinks perks system as it attempts to modernise its brand and encourage “the right behaviours” from its army of advisers.
Adviser pay will no longer be solely driven by sales and instead will reflect factors like charitable work, customer retention and qualifications. The wealth manager is also doing away with cliff-edge bonuses, where advisers must hit a pre-arranged sales target in order to be eligible for a pay rise the following year.
In addition, all overseas business trips, including the annual cruises for top performing advisers, will be scrapped and the firm will no longer hand out decorative accoutrements like cufflinks for meeting aggressive sales targets, which had served as a kind of status symbol among SJP employees.
The changes, first reported in the Sunday Times, were announced at the wealth manager’s annual company meeting last week where chief executive Andrew Croft (pictured) and managing director Ian Gascoigne outlined plans to modernise the wealth manager’s brand.
At the meeting, held at London’s O2 Arena, Croft said he had enlisted the help of London consultancy Landor, which has revamped BP and British Airways, to give SJP’s brand a facelift.
He said the wealth firm had been forced to make some “quick and difficult decisions” after details of its lavish rewards systems, unveiled by the Sunday Times, sparked a media backlash. But he said the changes “were not taken lightly” and were in the “best interests” of the company.
SJP set to add more females to its board
SJP is also reportedly adding two more female non-executive directors to its board and is set to announce the appointments shortly.
Ex-Legal & General Investment Management personal investing boss Helena Morrissey joined the board at the start of the year.
Weeks into her role Morrissey was critical of SJP’s charging structure for not being transparent enough and said she wants to see the wealth manager help more women get into financial advice and do a better job of promoting ESG investing.
Outrage over the firm’s perks scandal, fee transparency and allegations of a macho culture has not translated into negative flows for the wealth manager which saw total funds under management climb to £117bn last year.
