There have been changes at the top of St James's Place as the company's managing director of investments retires.
The FTSE 100 company has announced that David Lamb will retire from his full-time role with the business in 2019.
His role will be taken by Robert Gardner, a founder of investment consultancy business Redington.
Andrew Croft, SJP's chief executive, said: "I would like to thank David Lamb for his exceptional contribution to St. James’s Place over many years. He has been an outstanding colleague.
"I am delighted to welcome Robert Gardner, who has worked closely with St James’s Place for some time. I am confident he will make an excellent addition to our executive board."
Mr Lamb will continue as chairman of SJP's investment committee on a part-time basis while Mr Gardner will keep his non-executive role at Redington.
SJP also published a trading update for the first six months of 2018, which credited an improved client retention rate for higher net inflows and assets under management (AUM) growth.
For the period covering the six months to 30 June 2018, the total assets managed by the company rose by 6 per cent to just below £97bn while net inflows were 21 per cent higher at £5.2bn.
This means new client money was more central to the growth of the assets than was the performance of the underlying funds.
The company said it had a client retention rate of 96 per cent, which Mr Croft said was reflected in SJP's growing AUM.
He said: "Individuals face considerable challenges when planning for and managing their wealth, both before and after retirement as well as when considering the transfer of wealth to their next generation. Consequently, we continue to see a growing demand for highly personalised and trusted face-to-face financial advice and service.
"Furthermore, we, and very importantly our Partner businesses, continue to invest in our respective infrastructure and capacity ensuring we are well placed for future growth.
"We are also investing in our client service, our investment management approach, both our new Asian and DFM businesses and very importantly an increasing investment in our academy."
The update comes in light of the company announcing the launch of a Diversified Assets fund, which will be managed by KKR.
The number of SJP advisers rose by 4 per cent in six months to 3,810.
The company also announced a 20 per cent increase in the dividend to 18.49p per share.
david.thorpe@ft.com
