IPS will come under James Hay brand
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James Hay and IPS Partnership Sipp businesses are to be streamlined and marketed under the James Hay brand from 2011.
The firm has also revealed it is to retain ownership of its wrap business, despite suggestions that it was looking to sell it.
IFG Group acquired James Hay from Santander in March and James Hay and IPS managing director Tim Sargisson says from next year the IPS brand will be phased out and the combined range of six different Sipp products will be reduced to two.
Sargisson says: “We will have two Sipps, the e-Sipp and the full Sipp. The e-Sipp will have a limited range of investment options and the full Sipp will allow access to any HMRC-approved product.”
To avoid the difficult job of merging the two businesses, they will continue to be run separately with the James Hay business running the e-Sipp and the IPS business running the full Sipp.
Sargisson says: “To try to crunch the two together, they would have both fallen over and we would have ended up with one unholy mess.”
He says changing market conditions means it is now in the interests of both IFG Group and the customer to keep hold of the wrap side of the business.
“We are working on the wrap at the moment and think that by January we will have a very strong wrap proposition.”
Pension Transfer Solutions managing director Carl Melvin says it was good news that James Hay was bought by a retirement specialist but the brand is not as powerful as it was. “James Hay has been caught in the headlights not knowing which way to go. I do not think the strength of the brand is as strong as it has been in the past.”
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