St. James’s Place PLC (LSE:STJ) reported full-year results ahead of analyst expectations and unveiled plans to accelerate shareholder returns, sending its shares up around 4% on Wednesday.
The UK wealth manager delivered an underlying cash result of £462.3 million for 2025, a 3% increase from £447.2 million in 2024 and approximately 4% above consensus forecasts. Underlying cash basic earnings per share rose 6% year on year to 87.0 pence from 82.0 pence. Revenue increased 19% to £3.77 billion compared with £3.16 billion the previous year, while funds under management reached a record £220.0 billion, up 16% from £190.2 billion.
The company announced that, beginning in 2026, total annual shareholder distributions will rise to 70% of the underlying cash result — one year earlier than previously planned. The policy will include ordinary dividends representing at least 40% of total returns, with the remainder delivered through share buybacks.
The board proposed a final dividend of 12.00 pence per share for 2025, unchanged from the prior year, resulting in a total dividend of 18.00 pence per share for the full year.
At year-end, St. James’s Place released an additional £18.7 million from its Ongoing Service Evidence provision, which will be returned to shareholders through buybacks alongside a £103.9 million final repurchase programme. Including an earlier £63.4 million release, total shareholder distributions for 2025 amounted to £313.3 million.
“The combination of another strong financial outcome together with good operational and strategic progress, has enabled the Board to update our shareholder returns guidance a year earlier than originally planned,” said Chief Executive Mark FitzPatrick.
The company confirmed successful implementation of its revised charging structure in August 2025 and remains on track to remove approximately £100 million of addressable costs by 2027. St. James’s Place also expects to complete its ongoing service evidence review during 2026.
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