7: Chris Ralph, Chief Strategist, St James's Place Wealth Management

Money Maze Podcast

Business, Investing, Management, News, Business News

4.8 • 216 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a FTSE 100 company, managing over £100 billion for 750,000 clients, St James Place (SJP) has been a great financial success story and today is the UK’s largest wealth manager.

Chris starts by describing his journey, studying economics at Hull University, learning key early life lessons working first at Cazenove then Fidelity, before taking up the position as Chief Investment Officer for St James Place. During that period, 2009-2020, the market value of the company grew rapidly and today has a stunning 97% client retention rate.

Chris describes the approach SJP has to building portfolios, through identifying and working with a range of global external managers across asset classes and styles. Unlike many wealth management firms, they use external Funds, do not select individual stocks, and have developed deep, long term relationships with fund managers to whom they have access. He also discusses their approach to developing long-term relationships with clients and their families who are served by the SJP “partnership structure”.

The conversation moves to the huge intergenerational wealth transfer taking place in the UK and the academy SJP run to train their advisors. Career opportunities in the wider wealth management business in the UK is also discussed, referring to an earlier MoneyMaze Podcast where Schroder’s CEO, Peter Harrison refers to the shortage of trained advisors and the growing “advice gap”.

Chris goes on to talk about their approach to investing in private equity and debt, the challenges of active versus passive, and their approach to the growing demand from investors for more clarity in ESG matters.

A discussion follows about the SJP experience with the Woodford Funds, and then on defending the criticism sometimes made about SJP’s opaque fee structure.

Finally Chris talks about his love of rock climbing and admiration for the climbing legends, and of his new passion, kite-surfing, which offers him the potential to be bruised both by markets and his main hobby!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Money Maze podcast. I'm Simon Brewer, and we've created this show to explore and unravel
0:15.4	some of the mysteries surrounding the investment business. And we hope through direct and insightful interviews with
0:22.3	masters of the real-life money maze, we're going to learn about different approaches to
0:27.5	allocating capital, making investment and business decisions, and navigating the pitfalls that line
0:34.2	the paths to prosperity. Whether you're a current or aspiring investor or a student
0:39.3	exploring career options, we hope you gain some helpful insights and enjoy the shows. Thank you for
0:45.6	listening. It would take eight Wembley stadiums to hold all the clients and the firm we're
0:53.1	going to discuss today.
0:56.1	That's three quarters of a million people.
1:03.0	They manage over £100 billion of assets, are a Futsi 100 company, and have been a great success story in becoming the UK's largest wealth manager.
1:06.6	So today I'm delighted to have the chief strategist and former chief investment office of St James Place,
1:12.2	Chris Ralph. Chris, welcome to the show.
1:14.5	Thank you, Sam. I'm delighted to be with you.
1:16.0	Chris, let's start with your earlier journey. I think you went to Hull University and studied economics.
1:21.4	Tell us a little bit about that.
1:23.0	Well, I was so long ago, I can barely remember it. and I think I spent the time rock climbing rather than studying
1:27.7	economics and I've always said that I'm not sure any of the economics that I learned at Hull
1:32.1	and I hope that none of my former professors are listening has actually held me in very good
1:36.3	stead through the rest of my career but it was an interesting journey nevertheless and if you put it
1:41.1	in today's context I feel terribly sorry for all of those students who
1:45.0	had to abandon their final term in university. But I had a great time at Hull and then was
1:50.4	incredibly fortunate to get into the investment world at a time that it was booming.
	...

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