Wealth management firm St James’s Place with offices in Scotland to cut 500 jobs

Wealth management firm St James’s Place is to make around 500 people redundant as part of a £200m savings drive.

The London-listed company is lining up plans to cut about one-sixth of its 3,200 corporate staff, it revealed in an internal memo first reported by the trade outlet Citywire.

Earlier this year, St James’s Place said it would make £100m in cost cuts per year for the next two years, and that it expected to have made £500m in savings by 2030.

The plans were announced as part of a strategy shake-up under new chief executive Mark FitzPatrick, who joined last year.

The layoffs will not affect the company’s stable of roughly 4,800 financial advisers across the country, who run their own smaller firms under the St James’s Place umbrella.

Instead, the 3,200 corporate staff based in London will be targeted by the cuts, a source familiar with the matter confirmed.

St James’s Place has offices across the UK including in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A spokesperson for St James’s Place said: “At our half-year results in July, we committed to saving £100m per year from the addressable cost base by 2027.

“Our cost reduction plans are focused on simplification and standardisation of processes within the business, but a programme of this size and scale will inevitably impact colleagues.

“We have now begun consulting with colleagues to share our proposal for how this might impact roles, the outcome of which will not be known until next year.

“In the meantime, we are fully committed to supporting all potentially impacted colleagues and to keeping them fully updated on key decisions and developments.”