Wealth manager begins £33m share buyback programme

Wealth manager St James’s Place is to start its £32.9m share buyback scheme today.

St James’s Place has the target of returning half of its full-year underlying cash result to shareholders. It expects this year to have an annual dividend of 18p per share, with the balance returned through share buybacks.

It has already declared an interim dividend of 6.0p and the share buyback was the equivalent of 6.0p per share.

Mark FitzPatrick, chief executive of St James’s Place

The share buyback was announced along with the company’s half-year results at the end of July, when its share price jumped 25% as shareholders reacted to a positive market update.

Despite the increase, it only returned the share price to around the levels seen six months ago, and it remains less than half the value seem at the start of 2022.

The firm, which has funds worth £181bn under its control, has faced a variety of challenges, including being under the spotlight over the size of its charges to its customers and it was the subject of an investigation by the financial authorities.

Mark Fitzpatrick, who became chief executive last December, acknowledged last month that the business has “a lot of hard work ahead of us” for the next two years as it implements a “refreshed strategic focus”.

The share buyback programme will run until the end of the year and is being led by JP Morgan Securities.