We believe in doing what we say we’re going to do. At St. James, this is the foundation for building trusting relationships and the reason why people continue doing business with us year after year.

​The relationships that we’ve built are the most important things in our business and we treat them that way.

We think “benchmark risk” is part of investment life. Our firm’s goal is to earn good absolute investment returns over long periods of time without exposing our clients’ capital to undue risk. We also believe that cash is sometimes the most attractive investment. We know this approach causes headaches for some of our favorite consultants, but we think flexibility and common sense will continue to serve our clients well over the years.

This investment style requires conviction – the ability to be firm when the crowd reacts frantically.

We discourage short-term speculators and market timers from joining us. We believe the best way to accomplish our goals is to accept short-term under-performance in exchange for long-term success. We expect to hold our investment positions unless fundamental valuation parameters change. We are not speculators and adhere to a strict value investment discipline. We are willing to hold cash.

This may be a different approach than you’re used to. It has served us well over the years, performing well in all seasons. We’re committed to patient, disciplined value-investing into the future.

Patience is vital to successful long-term investing. We make sure that we invest your capital prudently. We have experienced market environments when it has taken us the better part of a year to fully structure a portfolio.

When we analyze potential equity investments, we think about the business behind the stock and try to buy shares at a large discount to the company’s underlying business value. Ideally, the business value rises over time and the stock price follows. This often allows us to hold the stock for many years, minimizing transaction costs, taxes, and the need for new investment ideas.

The philosophy that guides the management of our equity and balanced portfolios is built on traditional principles. We maintain a long-term focus, conduct our own research and employ a rigorous price discipline.

Our decision making process takes full advantage of individual insights within a partnership-oriented culture. These factors drive the achievement of the competitive returns we seek for our clients and their portfolios.

Our decades of experience and focused market studies make our management services a valuable asset for the health of your portfolios.

Aligning our interests with our clients is so important to us that we “eat our own cooking.” This means that all of our investment professionals have a majority of their families’ liquid net worth invested in our portfolios.

This does not guarantee that the portfolios will go up, but it means that we win or lose together and that clients definitely have our attention.

What’s more, we are an independent, fee-only investment advisory firm. Our sole focus is providing management services, not selling superfluous products.