When Britain’s largest wealth manager, with £190bn in client assets, shifts towards evidence-based portfolios, it’s time to take notice.
I reported in Money Marketing two years ago that St James’s Place was heading in this direction. It had recently recruited two index-fund enthusiasts to senior positions: Justin Onuekwusi as chief investment officer and Joe Wiggins as director of research.
The question was whether they could redirect a ship built on decades of active orthodoxy. Last week, I interviewed Onuekwusi and Wiggins for an upcoming Timeline video. It was the perfect opportunity to check on progress.
Let’s be honest: change was long overdue. SJP was founded in 1991, the year before Legal & General — Onuekwusi’s former employer — launched its first index fund. For decades, study after study has shown that L&G was on the right track, and that investors are better off avoiding active funds. Yet firms like SJP largely chose to ignore it.
Have things finally changed for the better? There’s a still a long way to go, but I believe they have
Had it offered low-cost index funds from the outset, SJP clients would be materially better off today. Every year of delay compounded the opportunity cost. Few of the company’s critics were as vocal as I was, and I started to wonder whether things would ever change.
So have things finally changed for the better? There’s a still a long way to go, but I believe they have.
Two things in particular emerged from my interview that pleasantly surprised me. First, I had assumed that the new Polaris Multi-Index range SJP recently announced, would be tactically allocated — if you like, active investing using passive building blocks. It turns out I was largely wrong.
Joe Wiggins was emphatic: “When we talk about being active in asset allocation, we are not doing tactical moves. Tactical allocation is incredibly difficult to do well. But when valuations reach extremes, we may make small adjustments to improve long-term outcomes.”
In other words, they’re not trying to outguess the markets or pre-empt a market top or bottom, which the evidence tells us, again and again, destroys wealth. They’re focused instead on valuations and justifiably so: the higher the price you pay, the lower the expected return. That’s an important distinction.
How many of SJP’s 4,000-plus advisers are fully on-board with evidence-based investing?
Onuekwusi reinforced the point: “What we’re trying to build is a framework that encourages discipline, helps clients avoid unnecessary trading, and keeps portfolios aligned with their objectives — not reacting to every market noise.”
That brings me to the second pleasant surprise, which was learning how behavioural finance has been firmly embedded at the centre of SJP’s investment process.
“If you make poor decisions through time, that will overwhelm everything else,” Wiggins explained. “Part of our job is to communicate sound investment behaviour and help clients stick with their plans.”
Does that include recommending active funds?
“There’s a natural attraction to active management because you’re outsourcing anxiety. Humans like action. It makes us feel we’re doing something,” Joe observed, before adding, with refreshing honesty, “That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right thing to do.”
Wiggins said he was also working with SJP’s active managers to maintain discipline: “It’s the divergence from a manager’s core philosophy that causes problems, not whether they underperform in a given quarter.”
Robin Powell: Why so many funds end up dead on arrival
Important questions remain. For a start, how many of SJP’s 4,000-plus advisers are fully on-board with evidence-based investing? After all, cultural inertia takes years to overcome.
Many old-school advisers have used what I call performance theatre for decades to attract new prospects. Are they finally ready to embrace data and evidence, and turn their focus away from active story-telling to client education, behavioural coaching and financial planning?
Crucially, what proportion of new money will flow into the multi-index range instead of the firm’s traditional active offerings?
But, with OCF of 20 basis points, the Polaris multi-Index range is a compelling option and a genuine competitor to Vanguard LifeStrategy, or MPS solutions from the likes of Timeline and Sparrows Capital.
So what should clients of SJP do now? I would certainly recommend having a meeting with your adviser. Start with the core question: “Has my portfolio been built using the same evidence-based approach that Justin Onuekwusi and Joe Wiggins describe?”
You should hear specific references to diversification, discipline and long-term consistency. If the answer involves “manager skill”, “our view on markets” or “active opportunities”, the philosophy hasn’t reached your portfolio yet.
If your adviser talks about ‘taking profits’ or ‘reducing risk ahead of uncertainty’, that’s tactical thinking dressed up
Next: “Am I in the Polaris Multi-Index range? If not, why not?” This is the test. If SJP believes Polaris represents better outcomes for clients, existing clients shouldn’t be excluded. Your adviser should explain either why Polaris suits your needs or provide a credible reason why your current portfolio is demonstrably better.
On costs: “What is my total cost of ownership — advice, platform, and product — in pounds per year?” Polaris charges 0.20% at fund level. If your total drag is significantly higher, you deserve an itemised breakdown and a justification for each layer of cost.
On process: “Will my portfolio be adjusted based on tactical market views?” The only acceptable answer mirrors Joe Wiggins: structural, valuation-based changes at extremes, not short-term timing. If your adviser talks about “taking profits” or “reducing risk ahead of uncertainty”, that’s tactical thinking dressed up.
Finally: “What value do you provide now that fund costs are lower and market timing is off the table?” The answer should focus on financial planning, tax efficiency, behavioural coaching and keeping you invested through volatility. If product selection dominates the response, the adviser hasn’t adapted to the new model.
These aren’t hostile questions. They’re the logical consequence of SJP’s public pivot. If the shift is genuine, advisers welcome the conversation. If answers are evasive, you know the rhetoric hasn’t reached reality.
When SJP moves, it redefines what ‘normal’ looks like for everyone else
It’s SJP’s market position that makes these developments so significant. With more than a million clients, it’s the gravitational centre of UK wealth management. When SJP moves, it redefines what “normal” looks like for everyone else.
Over the next 18 months, every wealth manager and DFM will face versions of this question: “SJP now offers 0.20% passive portfolios — why are you charging me 1.5% all-in for active funds that don’t beat the market?”
The definition of professionalism is shifting. For decades, adviser sophistication meant demonstrating market insight and fund selection skill. When even SJP — the firm that built a FTSE 100 business on active management — publicly states that market timing adds little value, that story collapses.
SJP’s shift doesn’t create this change — the evidence did that years ago. But it legitimises it, mainstreams it and makes resistance far harder to sustain.
Robin Powell is a journalist and content specialist who works with firms in the financial advice sector. He is also the founder of The Evidence-Based Investor
