Skandia: 'We don't want to be SJP'

At a conference for key IFA partners in London last week, Skandia chief executive Peter Mann put up a slide: his view of the financial services market. At the top were wealth managers St James’s Place (SJP) and Barclays, below them was Skandia, while, at the bottom of the pile, were ‘Newco’ platforms Ascentric, Nucleus, Novia and Transact. Fund custodians Pershing and SEI followed. “This is the direction we want to be heading in,” said Mann, pointing upwards. “We created and still own the UK’s largest retail platform. That’s good, but not good enough. We want to be a wealth manager.” ...