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Why St James’s Place Polaris 4 (PN) Fails the “Balanced Pension” Test

  • Writer: Alpesh Patel
    Alpesh Patel
  • Sep 11
  • 4 min read

Updated: Sep 27

Let’s skip the velvet glove. Polaris 4 PN is marketed as a neat, pre‑packaged, “balanced”‑sounding pension solution. In practice, it’s an equity‑heavy fund‑of‑funds with a brief track record and a fee stack that drags like an anchor. That combination is unhelpful for anyone who needs dependable compounding rather than expensive marketing. Here’s why.

1) It’s far racier than many investors think Polaris 4 is allowed to run at up to 100% equities and, in all market conditions, stays predominantly (>80%) in shares. It can also allocate to other collective investment schemes (including up to 20% in unregulated vehicles), which adds complexity and liquidity risk. That’s not “middle‑of‑the‑road”; that’s high‑beta growth with a multi‑manager wrapper. See SJP’s own Key Investor Information for Polaris 4 (Unit Trust) for the mandate detail and risk language.



For context, the “PN” tag simply denotes the pension version. Trustnet classifies the pension variant in the mixed‑asset 40‑85% shares sector but lists it as a Pension Fund—useful only in understanding the wrapper, not the risk, which is plainly equity‑led.


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2) Charges that compound against you SJP itself says the typical total ongoing charge (advice + product + fund) lands around 1.67% a year for pensions under its new unbundled model (live from 26 August 2025). Initial advice is tiered at 3%/2%/1% (capped at £30k), and the ongoing advice fee is 0.8%, with product charges typically ~0.35% and fund costs commonly quoted around ~0.52%. Even on SJP’s own numbers, that’s meaningfully higher than straightforward passive options.


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By contrast, a DIY SIPP even if it was 0.37% all‑in—about 1.3 percentage points a year cheaper than SJP’s 1.67%. Over 10 years on £500k, assuming a 5% gross return, that fee gap alone can mean roughly £92,000 less in your pocket with the dearer option; and SJP’s tiered initial advice haircut can lop £12,500 off a £500k contribution on day one. Sources and fee schedules below. (Vanguard Investor, Financial Times)

3) Exit fees haven’t fully died SJP is finally removing early withdrawal charges on new money from 26 August 2025.

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But contributions made before that will keep the legacy six‑year exit‑fee clock, meaning penalties can still bite well into the 2030s for existing clients. If liquidity flexibility matters to you, that’s a real drawback.

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4) A short track record dressed in vast distribution Polaris 4 (Unit Trust) only launched 21 November 2022—there simply isn’t a cycle’s worth of evidence of persistent alpha. Meanwhile, the Polaris range has swollen to ~£65‑80bn, largely thanks to SJP’s captive distribution, not a decade of benchmark‑thumping returns. Scale is not a substitute for pedigree.


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5) “Value for money” history that doesn’t help the defence SJP’s own value assessments have repeatedly flagged performance and value issues across the fund range. In 2024, over a quarter of SJP funds failed the value test, with around three‑quarters red‑flagged on performance before stripping out advice/platform charges. Even Citywire’s follow‑up shows that excluding advice fees improves optics, which rather proves the point: the advice layer is a big part of why outcomes lag.


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Polaris 4 PN is essentially an expensive, equity‑heavy fund‑of‑funds with limited history, sold by a firm that is only now modernising its fees under regulatory pressure. If you want 80–100% equity exposure, you can buy it transparently and cheaply elsewhere. Paying Harrods prices for a basket of iShares/State Street building blocks (SJP uses both in the range) is generous to SJP, not to your long‑term returns.

Don’t let an equity beta product become the Trojan horse for a lifetime of unnecessary fee drag. That’s not cynicism; it’s arithmetic.

Sources:

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