Justin Onuekwusi (pictured), chief investment officer at St James’s Place, said: 'These changes reflect our commitment to continuously evolve our investment approach.'
St James’s Place (SJP) has transformed its Worldwide Income unit trust and appointed Acadian Asset Management as its investment adviser.
The plan is to move to a more diversified investment approach, reduce ongoing charges and strengthen the fund's long-term investment outcomes.
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Acadian will adopt an active, systematic investment approach, merging advanced data-driven modelling with human expertise to spot global income opportunities. The strategy was previously managed by Ninety One.
As a result, the fund will balloon from 30 holdings to approximately 500 companies to reduce concentration risk and provide consistency in income sources across market environments.
Charges will be dropped by 0.3 percentage points across all unit classes as of 20 July 2026, with charges for class S amounting to 0.22% after the reduction, SJP explained. The fund will be renamed St James's Place Global Equity Income unit trust.
The fund will focus on achieving, over five years, a level of income exceeding that of the MSCI All Country World index.
The fund had £893.55m assets as of 31 March and it delivered returns of 7.5%, 6.6% and 5.2% over one, three and five years, respectively, underperforming its benchmark - the MSCI ACWI index - which returned 30.3%, 18.9% and 12.6% over the same periods, according to its factsheet.
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Justin Onuekwusi, chief investment officer at St James's Place, said: "These changes reflect our commitment to continuously evolve our investment approach to deliver long-term outcomes for clients.
"By combining a more diversified portfolio with a systematic, data-driven process, the fund is positioned to provide a consistent level of income while managing risk effectively."
Kelly Young, CEO at Acadian, added: "With this appointment, we will implement Acadian's proven, cutting-edge systematic process, with a focus on achieving an attractive level of income for investors while utilising a robust risk-controlled framework."
