“St James’s New Face? Advice giant appoints brand agency Landor to ‘further reputation'”

Jan 27, 2020 | Companies

St James’s Place was founded by old-school life insurance salespeople, and is one of the few life insurance companies with salespeople which is still around and (very) profitable. The founders stuck to their supposedly-outdated business model through thick and thin and have outsold and outlasted many a competitor and you can’t do that without plenty of satisfied customers. I don’t like them and would never work for them but they show the power of sticking to your knitting; which I bet they’ll continue to do.

“Amazon invades financial services with home insurance launch”

Oct 25, 2022 | Companies

Amazon, like Musk, and Branson before them both, can afford to try lots of stuff and fail at some.

“Natwest and trio of private equity firms vie for Quilter”

Aug 2, 2022 | Companies

In the 80s and 90s, banks and building societies bought life insurance, pension companies and fund managers, took on lots of financial advisers and sold financial products by the bucket-load, by means both fair and foul, to their customers.

“Nutmeg losses climb 28% after JPMorgan takeover”

Jun 30, 2022 | Companies

If you’re offering cheap, online investment advice, you need volume to make it profitable. To get volume (ie lots of money), you need marketing (to get lots of people to log in and give you money). And that costs, particularly, as will inevitably be the case, most of...