Retired Chartered Accountant & Chartered Financial Planner, now applying his knowledge and experience as a part-time Consultant, Charity Trustee and Volunteer in the run up to a proper retirement one day!
I've spent a little bit more time looking around the accounts of the Cooper Associates Group of Companies this morning. The last Accounts published by its St. James’s Place "Partner Practice" Cooper Associates Wealth Management Limited as at December 31 2022 are very interesting. It seems to me that around October 2022 it acquired another SJP practice for a price of around £2.7 million and in the process increased its borrowings by over £2.2 million, presumably to fund that transaction. Worth noting base rate at the time was around 2.25%. The last reported Balance Sheet of that firm it acquired was dated 8 months earlier. At that date it had a Balance Sheet value of £40,000. The Balance Sheet included intangible goodwill of around £240,000 which presumably arose as a result if it purchasing another SJP practice itself. The FCA realises that the real value of "Goodwill" is effectively anyone's guess so its ignored when firm's submit their Solvency Calculations. If it is ignored in this case the acquired firm's balance sheet would have been worth around negative £200,000. - it had tangible assets of around £60,000 but it owed around £260,000 to various creditors. I'd suggest paying £2.2 million for a business in that shape is one heck of a premium! It looks to me like SJP firms place a very high multiple on the value of the client fees they buy and sell to each other. What is even more interesting is that the accounts for Cooper Associates show it had a Corporation Tax Liability in 2021 of £652,000. That suggests to me profits of around £3.4 million in that year. At December 2022 it was reserving absolutely zero for Corporation Tax. That suggests to me it made no taxable profit at all in 2022 - and yet it seems it was still able to borrow an additional £2.2 million to buy another SJP Practice. I wonder who lent it that. I also wonder if there is more to this latest headline than meets the eye. Am I wrong on any of this St. James’s Place Place or Cooper Associates Group?
Great breakdown Dave Robinson FCCA APFS MCSI TEP LLAA IMC . The more you hear about #sjp the more it makes you wonder how they pulled the wool over everyone's eyes for quite as long as they did. Hopefully St. James’s Place will listen to the negative press and make the changes required.
Retired Chartered Accountant & Chartered Financial Planner, now applying his knowledge and experience as a part-time Consultant, Charity Trustee and Volunteer in the run up to a proper retirement one day!
6moPS I reiterate that filings at Companies House 3 months ago suggest Lee Cooper has relinquished control and SJP has taken over control. Those filings are inconsistent with the statement that SJP has taken a minority stake. Taking a minority stake is clearly inconsistent with taking control and the implications are clearly very different. I’d suggest integrity is at stake here and I ask what exactly is the true position St. James’s Place?