St. James's Place H1 2026 Earnings Report

St. James's Place EPS Results

• Actual EPS: GBX 43.30
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

St. James's Place Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

St. James's Place Announcement Details

• Quarter: H1 2026
• Date: 7/29/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 2:00AM ET

We plan, grow and protect the financial futures of over one million clients across the UK by providing holistic advice-led wealth management, delivered exclusively by the Partnership, our group of more than 4,900 highly skilled advisers. We offer an integrated client proposition, through which we provide financial advice, investment product wrappers such as pensions, investment bonds and ISAs, and offer our own range of investment funds and portfolios.

St. James's Place H1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Strong business momentum: Net inflows reached £2.7 billion, FUM exceeded £240 billion, retention improved to 95.4%, and the client base grew by 27,000 during the first half.
• Positive Sentiment: Results exceeded expectations and shareholder returns increased: Adjusted profit before tax was £278 million, ahead of the £194 million consensus, while the company announced £159 million of interim shareholder returns, including a £128 million buyback.
• Negative Sentiment: Near-term earnings remain pressured by the new charging structure: Adjusted profit before tax fell 9% year over year as initial and ongoing margins declined, while people, property, and technology costs are expected to rise 5% for the full year.
• Positive Sentiment: Management expects significant medium-term earnings acceleration: Profit from FUM is expected to increase by roughly three basis points annually through 2031, with sharply accelerating earnings anticipated from 2027 and continued confidence in doubling adjusted profits from 2023 to 2030.
• Positive Sentiment: Technology and scale are central to the growth strategy: More than 20 AI-enabled tools are in use, with initiatives such as Advice Assistant and SOFI improving adviser productivity, while the company sees substantial untapped demand for financial advice in the U.K.

Presentation

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Good morning, welcome to our 2026 half year results presentation. I'm pleased to report a strong set of results for St. James's Place, reflecting both good financial performance and continued operational and strategic progress. I'll start by summarizing new business performance in the period, and I'll then hand over to Caroline to take you through the financials in more detail before I come back to discuss our strategic progress. In the first half of the year, we continued to see high demand for financial advice as our clients navigated a complex and evolving environment. This is reflected in our new business performance. Net inflows for the period were GBP 2.7 billion, supported by gross inflows of GBP 10.5 billion. We also saw an improvement in FUM retention to 95.4%.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

This was above our long-term ambition of 95% and reflects the quality and longevity of relationships we and our advisors build with clients. FUM increased to over GBP 240 billion during the first half, driven by both positive net inflows and strong investment performance. Investment returns represented 16.4% of opening FUM on an annualized basis, net of all charges. This return reflects the value we deliver to clients through our distinctive investment management approach and our proprietary range of funds and portfolios. All of this helps clients to achieve their long-term financial goals. The strong growth in FUM, combined with our new business outturn, has translated into good financial results for the first half. We've delivered an adjusted IFRS before tax result of GBP 278.4 million, and Caroline will walk through the detail behind this shortly.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Both our client and advisor communities grew during the period, with a net 27,000 new clients, up nearly 3%, and an increase in advisor numbers to 4,951 at the end of June. Overall, the results show that our business is in good shape. These results also reflect the benefits of the investments we've made across the business. In a competitive marketplace, we continue to focusing on strengthening our client and advisor propositions. With that, I'll hand over to Caroline to take you through the financials in more detail.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

Thanks, Mark, good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to present our half year results in our new simplified reporting framework, which we announced to the market on the 18th of June. I will not be providing detailed background on the new framework today, but if you'd like a reminder of this, all the relevant materials are available on the shareholders section of our website. I'm going to start by focusing on our financial performance for the period, taking you through our adjusted IFRS results and the financial impact of our key programs of work. I'll set out our liquidity position and close with shareholder returns for the period. As usual, we are presenting the results for the first half of 2026 compared to the first half of 2025.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

The shape of our financials changed following the implementation of our simple comparable charging structure in late summer last year, there are structural differences between the financial results for these periods. Let's start by taking you through the adjusted IFRS P&L. I am very pleased that our headline metric, adjusted IFRS profit before tax, was GBP 278 million for the period. After tax, this equated to GBP 224 million, which compares to consensus expectations of GBP 194 million. As anticipated and guided, these results are lower than they were in the first half of 2025 due to the expected lower initial and ongoing margins earned under our new charging structure. Whether this effect extends to the full year 2026 will depend on how markets develop over the second half.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

From 2027 onwards, we anticipate sharply accelerating earnings, and we remain confident in our ambition to double adjusted profits from 2023 to 2030. Much of our income and expense base vary together with FUM levels or inflows, it is useful to consider these items together. As a result, I am going to focus my adjusted IFRS commentary on the analysis by business driver table, which you can see on the slide. As this table clearly shows, our profitability is driven by FUM. Profit from FUM was GBP 528 million for the first half of 2026, an increase of 4% period on period. This was driven by strong FUM growth, partially offset by the expected impact of earning lower ongoing margins under our new charging structure. Profit from FUM was within our 2026 guidance range of 47 to 49 basis points of total average FUM on an annualized basis.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

We continue to expect this margin will be in that range for full year 2026 and that it will increase annually through to 2031 as gestation FUM begins to contribute to ongoing profitability. We will provide one-year forward guidance on the profit from FUM range. For modeling purposes, we suggest you assume that the range increases by approximately three basis points annually out to 2031. You can find a summary of all our guidance in the appendix to the slide deck, which is unchanged from when we announced our simplified reporting framework. This annual increase in profit from FUM margin, combined with net inflows and investment return increasing FUM in supportive markets, builds a powerful picture of how our profitability can develop and compound over the medium term.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

As expected, at GBP 18 million, profit from inflows is relatively immaterial under our new charging structure following the removal of initial product charges, we expect this to remain small going forward. I will now expand expenses unrelated to fund or inflows into its constituent parts. The most significant expense in this category is our people, property, and technology, or PPT costs, which equated to GBP 261 million in the first half. We continue to expect that full-year PPT costs will increase by 5% year-on-year. Cost growth will be weighted towards the second half of the year due to an increase in our anticipated reinvestment spend in that period, enabled by the cost savings from our Cost and Efficiency program. Charge structure implementation costs were nil in the period, compared to GBP 51 million in the first half of 2025.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

This is as expected given our new charging structure was implemented in late summer last year. The final key line in the adjusted IFRS result is investment return and net finance income, which was GBP 71 million for the period. This has increased period on period, primarily driven by both shareholder investments in money markets funds, and business loans to partners being higher on average in the first half of 2026 compared to the first half of 2025, partially offset by a decrease in interest rates. These factors combine to give adjusted IFRS profit before tax for the period of GBP 278 million. Whilst this is a reduction of 9% compared to the first half of 2025, driven by the impact of our new charging structure. As previously mentioned, we anticipate sharply accelerating earnings growth from 2027 onwards.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

The effective tax rate for the first half of the year was 19% in the adjusted IFRS result. This is lower than we would expect over the long term due to temporary market-related accounting effects, which means there will be some variability in reported tax rates from period to period. However, the current standard U.K. corporation tax rate of 25% remains the most appropriate assumption for you to use in your modeling. This led to adjusted IFRS profit after tax of GBP 224 million. I'll now move on to cover the financial impact of our two key programs of work. Firstly, the Historic Ongoing Service Evidence Review. We are now in the final stages of this work, and we remain confident in completing the program by the end of 2026.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

Due to experience gathered during the period, we've been able to release a further GBP 110 million before tax from our ongoing service evidence provision. This release is recognized outside of the adjusted IFRS P&L due to its non-recurring nature. The remaining provision stands at GBP 110 million at the half year. Consistent with previous releases from this provision, the board has decided to return the post-tax amount of GBP 83 million to shareholders in full through a share buyback program. I'll set out further details when I cover shareholder returns shortly. Secondly, our Cost and Efficiency program. As a reminder, our aim is to take GBP 100 million of cost a year out of our addressable cost base. The objective of the program was never simply to reduce costs. It was to create a stronger, more scalable business with greater capacity to invest to drive future growth.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

We expect to reinvest approximately half of the cost savings over the period to 2030, resulting in a significant reinvestment envelope of around GBP 260 million. That level of reinvestment is an important enabler for the next phase of our strategy. We remain on track to deliver the program by 2027. As previously guided, this program has had no material impact on these half year results. This is because the cost savings have been broadly matched by cost to achieve and reinvestment spend. During the period, we prioritized our reinvestment spend on enhancing the propositions we provide for both advisers and clients. One area that's particularly close to my heart is the continued evolution of our business sale and purchase, or BSP scheme. This is a critical part of what we offer our advisers.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

It supports them throughout their entire journey from recruitment to retirement, helping them build successful businesses, grow their value over time, and ultimately realize that value when they choose to retire or step back. We see BSP as a key enabler of both business growth and capital realization, which is why we continue to invest in its development. By strengthening this proposition, we are giving advisors greater confidence in their future and helping ensure they can fully benefit from the businesses they have worked so hard to build.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

Mark will talk more about other enhancements to our advisor and client propositions later. We continue to expect that the program will have no material impact on the full-year 2026 results for the same reasons it had no material impact in the half, after which time benefits to the adjusted IFRS result will start to emerge in line with our previous guidance.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

Let me now turn to our liquidity position. At the 30th of June, we had GBP 276 million of free liquidity held at group center. You can see how this is derived from total shareholder liquid assets on the slide. We are comfortable holding this level of free liquidity as it provides a layer of both prudence and flexibility in how we run the business. We will regularly review this to ensure we continue to optimize our capital allocation priorities in line with our capital allocation framework, which is unchanged and included in the appendix. Cash flows into and out of free liquidity over the period are set out on this slide, which demonstrates that our business is highly cash generative. Finally, shareholder returns. As we communicated in February, the board intends to increase our payout ratio for ordinary shareholder returns from 50% to 70% for 2026 and beyond.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

This ratio applies to adjusted IFRS profit after tax under our new reporting framework. As this metric is equivalent to the underlying cash result, there is no change in the amount that will be paid out. In February, we also set out our intention for the half year 2026 shareholder returns, which was that these would be set at a third of the prior four-year balance for ordinary shareholder returns, excluding buybacks relating to releases from our ongoing service evidence provision. In line with this guidance, the board has declared an interim ordinary dividend of GBP 0.06 per share, together with an interim ordinary share buyback of GBP 45 million. Combined with the additional buyback due to the release from the ongoing service evidence provision for the period, this means our total buyback program will be GBP 128 million. We will commence this buyback in August.

[Caroline Waddington, CFO at St. James's Place]

To conclude, we've delivered good financial results for the first half of 2026, driven by strong growth in FUM and disciplined expense management, offset, as anticipated, by the impact of our new charging structure. We continue to have a strong balance sheet, we are committing to shareholder returns of GBP 159 million through the combination of share buybacks and the interim dividend. The annual increase in profit from FUM margin, combined with growing FUM and all new business now contributing to ongoing profitability from day one, means we anticipate sharply accelerating earnings growth from 2027 onwards, underpinning our confidence in our ambition to double adjusted profits from 2023-2030. With that, I'll hand back to Mark.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Thanks, Caroline. I'm going to cover two topics. First, our strategic progress, including how we see technology as an enabler to our business. Second, why we're excited about the market opportunity ahead, and how we're leveraging our scale to extend our competitive advantage. Beginning with strategy. As you have heard, we've progressed things well in the first half, both financially and operationally. What I'm going to do now is step back and talk about where we are in our strategic journey and why we remain confident in the path ahead. You'll recall that we designated this initial period as our Strengthen phase. We are focused on addressing legacy matters, simplify the business, and improving the way we operate. St. James's Place is a simpler, more efficient business today.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

This puts us in a stronger position as we prepare for the Amplify phase of our strategy, which is much more focused on growth. Let me recap on the progress we've made during the Strengthen phase. First, our move to simple comparable charging. This was a key step in improving transparency for clients and in making it easier to articulate the value of our proposition. The transition has been successful.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Advisers continue to attract new clients and generate significant levels of new business. The new structure has supported innovation across our product range, including the launch of Polaris Multi-Index. The changes we've made have strengthened our proposition for both advisers and clients. Our ambition is never to be the lowest cost provider. It is to deliver great outcomes through high-quality advice, supported by strong investment solutions, technology, and service.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

The chart on this slide shows we deliver that at a very competitive price for clients. The charging structure changes we've made strengthen our ability to demonstrate that value proposition with confidence. Second, our Cost and Efficiency program. This is helping to create a simpler, more productive, and more scalable organization. Importantly, the benefits extend beyond efficiency alone. By simplifying how we operate, we're creating additional capacity to invest in both our adviser and client propositions to drive future growth.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Third, the Historic Ongoing Service Evidence Review. This has been a significant undertaking across the business. As Caroline outlined earlier, I am pleased we are entering the final stages of this work. As these programs reach completion, management attention and investment will increasingly shift towards growth. Taken together, these initiatives have left us better positioned to scale, invest, and maintain leadership in our marketplace.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Alongside these programs, we've continued to make strong progress on several strategic priorities. First, we have broadened our client proposition. We've launched Polaris Multi-Index and continue to evolve our cash proposition through our relationship with Flagstone. This includes expanding access to cash ISAs, reducing minimum deposit amounts, and securing improved pricing for clients. These enhancements enable advisers to support a broader range of client needs.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

We're also continuing to explore opportunities to further develop our proposition for clients with more complex and substantial wealth planning needs. As the U.K. wealth market evolves, we see an opportunity to enhance the support available to higher net worth clients as part of the Amplify phase of our strategy. Second, we have strengthened the St. James's Place brand. Our Net Promoter Score and brand awareness have both increased by 14 percentage points since the end of 2023.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

In a business built on trust, relationships, and referrals, these are such important indicators of long-term strength. They support client retention, adviser growth, and the ability to attract new clients at scale. Third, we have enhanced our adviser proposition. We are strengthening the sense of community within the partnership, renewing our focus on bringing our advisers together to increase connectivity, learning, and the sharing of experiences.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

We have evolved our market-leading BSP proposition, which is our succession support scheme. We've improved pricing transparency, simplified transaction processes, and expanded support for first-time buyers. This has helped to create a more efficient and accessible BSP marketplace, supporting advisers to build and grow with the confidence that they can realize the value of their advice businesses. These developments contributed to a strong first half on the BSP front.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Nearly 200 advisers made purchases through the scheme during the period. BSP transaction volumes were significantly ahead of the prior year. We also supported the largest BSP transaction in our history. This demonstrates the strength and maturity of the marketplace we've created and our ability and appetite to support transactions at real scale. Alongside this progress, we've continued to modernize one of the most important enablers of our long-term strategy, namely technology. I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about technology, including the role of AI at St. James's Place, and how this is already delivering benefits across our business today. Technology is increasingly a competitive advantage within our industry. At St. James's Place, it improves adviser productivity, enhances client experiences, and helps us scale more effectively. Good technology is not a choice. It is a strategic priority.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Over the last six months, we've completed a review of our technology strategy through to 2030. This ensures we're well-positioned to build on our technology foundation in the years ahead. At its heart, the strategy is centered on executing on three priorities. First, making St. James's Place easier to do business with. We are simplifying adviser tools, improving connectivity between systems, and enhancing digital experiences for clients.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

The objective is straightforward. Less friction, greater productivity, and better experiences. Second, creating a more efficient and scalable business. We're simplifying processes to reduce duplication, improve control, and free up resources to invest for growth. Third, strengthening our data foundations. As the U.K.'s largest financial advice business, we have deep client relationships and a huge amount of data that helps us gain insight into client behaviors and needs that supports our advisers.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Bringing this together more effectively will improve decision-making for us and our advisers. It will help us deliver increasingly personalized experiences for clients, and it will create an environment that will allow us to make much greater use of AI over time. As technology, data, and AI reshape our industry, scale is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage. Our scale enables us to continue investing in our proposition, technology, and capabilities for the benefits of advisers and clients alike.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

One of the most exciting opportunities a stronger technology and data foundations create is the ability to make much greater use of AI. We think we're well-positioned in an increasingly AI-enabled world. At its core, financial advice is built on trust, judgment, and long-term relationships. Those things don't go away as technology evolves. If anything, they become even more important. How do we think about using AI today?

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Our approach is guided by three principles. First, human-centric AI. We are using AI to reduce administrative efforts and improve quality. This allows advisers to spend more time with clients, delivering high-quality advice and building more successful businesses. Second, ecosystem-led innovation. We work with leading technology partners, combining their expertise with innovation from across St. James's Place and the partnership.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

Our scale and profile as a market leader means that the largest technology companies in the world want to work with us. Third, treating data as a strategic asset. Reliable data is essential for effective AI and for helping advisers to deliver increasingly personalized client experiences at scale. In our view, the businesses that can combine trusted relationships, good data, and the ability to keep investing are likely to be the ones that benefit most from AI.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

As the U.K.'s largest advice business, we believe St. James's Place is particularly well-positioned for this environment. Far from being a threat to our model, we see AI as an enabler of it. Today, we already have more than 20 AI-enabled tools delivering benefits across St. James's Place. Advice Assistant is saving around 90 minutes per case while improving quality and accuracy. ChatSJP already supports around 2,500 monthly users within our partner practices, helping them find policy and advice information quickly and efficiently. This is tracking at about 15 minutes save per query and allows users to access information and support 24/7 rather than being restricted to core business hours. SOFI, a meeting intelligence tool, is now being rolled out across the partnership following a pilot program.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

By automating key elements of meeting administration, SOFI saves valuable time for advisers and their teams, enabling more time to be spent with clients and prospects. Firms participating in the pilot achieved higher new client growth relative to control groups, with the benefit more pronounced among our smaller partner practices. This provides a strong early indication that the tool can enhance adviser productivity and contribute to stronger practice growth and profitability across the partnership.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

The tools already in use across St. James's Place are improving productivity and supporting better experiences for advisers and clients. We'll build further on these AI capabilities over time. Where does this leave us? We are focused on how we use the stronger business we've built to better support clients and advisers and drive growth. This includes embedding recently announced changes to partner pay and benefits. These enhance a number of things.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

They simplify adviser pay, better align reward with the delivery of high-quality holistic advice, and strengthen our already compelling adviser proposition. Importantly, these changes are fully funded through efficiencies and scale benefits already been achieved elsewhere in the business. As we look ahead, we'll also continue laying the foundations for the next phase of our strategy, namely the Amplify phase.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

I'll share more details on this at our full year results. The second main topic I wanted to cover is why we're excited about the market opportunity ahead and how we're leveraging our scale to extend our competitive advantage. As we think about the future, what gives us real confidence is not only the progress we've made, but also the size of the opportunity ahead. Today, approximately GBP 1 trillion of U.K. assets are advised, and only around 9% of U.K. adults receive regulated financial advice.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

This is very low, especially when compared to a reported 27% in the U.S. Over time, even if the U.K. moves moderately closer to those levels, that represents a very significant expansion in the addressable market. This reinforces our conviction that there is substantial untapped demand for high-quality, trusted financial advice over the long-term. Both the regulator and the U.K. government see this as an issue to be addressed.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

We believe the firms that combine trusted advice with the capacity to invest will be the biggest beneficiaries as our industry evolves over time. Competition for advisers is increasing, offering advisers greater choice when considering where to set up and run their advice businesses. At the same time, the advice industry is evolving. Advisers need more technology, more regulatory support, more investment capability, and greater operational scale behind them than ever before.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

They need this to meet increasing client expectations for personal advice, great service, modern technology, and high-quality investment solutions. Delivering all of that consistently requires sustained investment. Because our success depends on attracting, developing, and retaining talented advisers over the long-term, we've spent the last two years strengthening every aspect of the St. James's Place proposition. We believe scale is becoming an increasingly important competitive advantage in our industry.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

As the U.K.'s leading advice business, we are particularly well-positioned. Let me explain what that means for us. St. James's Place combines the trust and visibility of a national brand with the personal client relationships that sit at the heart of successful financial planning. Advisers increasingly need more than a platform. They need a partner that can help them attract clients, develop professionally, operate efficiently, and build long-term value.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

At St. James's Place, advisers have access to market-leading support, training, and professional development throughout their careers. The partnership operates as a collaborative community where advisers learn from each other, share best practice, and benefit from their collective expertise. They are supported by modernizing technology, operational infrastructure, and a differentiated investment proposition, including our market-leading Polaris solutions. This allows them to focus more of their time on clients, building more successful businesses, and deliver better long-term client outcomes.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

They operate within a model designed to help them build, grow, and ultimately realize the value of their quality advice businesses. This is all supported by powerful and proven initiatives such as our market-leading BSP proposition, which I spoke about earlier, and the St. James's Place Academy. The academy continues to thrive and is key to succession planning, regenerating the partnership, and building diversity.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

We take great pride in the fact that we train and develop around half of all the new advisers in our profession. This underlines both the scale of our investment in professional development and our long-term commitment to the future of financial advice. It's another point of differentiation for St. James's Place and one of the key reasons why our adviser proposition is the most compelling in U.K. financial advice.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

These same strengths create a powerful and differentiated proposition for clients. At St. James's Place, clients benefit from what we describe as the best of both worlds. They receive the personal relationship, trusted guidance, and long-term support of a local adviser, someone who knows them, understands their circumstances, and helps them navigate life's most important financial decisions. At the same time, they benefit from the scale, expertise, and security of the U.K.'s largest advice business.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

That means access to leading investment solutions such as our flagship Polaris range, which are managed by top fund managers from around the world. It means ongoing investment technology and service, a wide range of planning capabilities and solutions, and the strength and backing of a U.K. FTSE 100 business with clear market leadership and a long track record of success. As the external landscape evolves, our advisors are supported by an organization that has the resources and capability to understand, react, and adapt.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

This ensures clients continue to receive the best service. Our business is predicated on fully backing our partnership community. We guarantee their advice and provide the technical insights to help them understand and adapt their advice for changes in tax, pension, regulatory, and political landscape. We believe this combination is unique in the U.K. market, and it's what makes our partnership model so powerful.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

As we continue to grow, we're able to invest more in the things that matter most to advisors and clients. Better technology, better service, better support, better solutions. Indeed, we're currently investing at a level unprecedented in the market. Our scale enables us to do this, and that's one of the reasons we believe our business model is becoming increasingly differentiated. Let me leave you with five closing thoughts.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

One, our strategy is clear, consistent, and delivering results. Two, we have strength in the business. We are entering the next phase with a compelling advisor offering, an enhanced client proposition, and increasing operational leverage. Three, we're operating in a large market with attractive long-term growth characteristics. Demand for trusted advice continues to grow. Four, technology is creating new opportunities to improve productivity and client experiences.

[Mark FitzPatrick, CEO at St. James's Place]

We believe the value of scale, trust, and professional advice will only increase over time, which plays to our strengths. Five, we have confidence in our direction of travel and in our ability to continue delivering for all our stakeholders. Thank you for listening, and please tune in for our live Q&A, which will kick off at 9:00 A.M.

Participants

Executives

• Mark FitzPatrick, CEO
• Caroline Waddington, CFO