By Eva Mathews and Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -Shares in British wealth manager St. James's Place (SJP) were on track for a record daily fall on Wednesday after it set aside 426 million pounds ($539 million) to cover the cost of mounting customer complaints over its charges.
The company's stock was last down 32%, pushing shares to their lowest level in 11 years. The move wiped more than 1 billion pounds off its market value, cutting it to around 2.3 billion pounds.
SJP - which manages 168.2 billion pounds in client assets - has been caught in the crosshairs of a wider regulatory crackdown on high fees charged by asset managers, which already led the company to cut a range of prices in October.
The firm's latest problem relates to a surge in complaints over services customers claim not to have received. SJP said it had found gaps in its record-keeping and had started to refund affected customers.
SJP chief executive Mark FitzPatrick told Reuters the provision was decided after a review of a sample of funds by an external party.
"I'm not expecting or not minded to be changing that provision," he said, adding that an upgrade to its systems had given it better oversight of services.
The company said it had been engaging extensively with British regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, on the matter.
"Complaints increased in the second half of 2023, and there may be concerns that more will come in," analysts at Jefferies said in a note, adding that the company's final dividend of 8 pence per share also fell short of analysts' forecasts.
The FTSE 100 company said annual dividends would be lower than expected at 18 pence over the next three years, due to the hefty complaints provision and the earlier changes to its charges that would lower future profits.
FitzPatrick said that he was confident the changes to charges made in October would be enough, amid greater scrutiny from the FCA of fee structures after it implemented a 'Consumer Duty' last year designed to protect customers.
St James's Place swung to an annual loss after tax of 9.9 million pounds for 2023 on the provision, compared with a net profit of 407.2 million pounds a year earlier.
The past couple of years have been bruising for the stock, with over 6 billion pounds being wiped off its market cap, as client inflows have slowed and several of its biggest funds have underperformed.
($1 = 0.7901 pounds)