St. James’s Place (SJP) has increased its exposure to Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) into its lower risk Polaris portfolios.
SJP has increased its exposure through the SPDR Bloomberg U.S. TIPS UCITS ETF in its Polaris 1 and Polaris 2 funds. The Polaris fund-of-funds range has grown to nearly £75 billion in assets under management since its launch in 2022, making it one of the UK’s largest multi-asset solutions.
TIPS are U.S. government bonds that help protect investors from rising prices. The value of the bond increases with inflation, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). As inflation goes up, both the bond’s value and the interest payments rise, helping to preserve the investor’s purchasing power over time.
| FoF | TIPS Allocation | % of Total Sovereign | % of Total Fixed Income | Total Sovereign | Total Fixed Income |
| Polaris 1 | 3.25% | 10.3% | 5.4% | 31.50% | 60.00% |
| Polaris 2 | 2.25% | 10.5% | 5.6% | 21.50% | 40.00% |
Hamish Gibberd, multi-asset portfolio manager at St. James’s Place, said: “We’ve taken steps to ensure portfolios are resilient in this environment of rising geopolitical risk and inflation uncertainty. Most recently, we added US Treasury TIPS to our lower-risk portfolios.
Our rationale was simple, short-term inflationary risks from tariffs combined with long-term deflationary concerns, make it very difficult to forecast inflation accurately. So adding inflation protection where we can made sense.
The first half of 2025 was marked by considerable turbulence, driven in part by escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and ongoing uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariffs. The latter continues to evolve with new announcements, retaliatory measures, temporary exemptions, and legal disputes – all of which have contributed meaningfully to short-term market volatility.
In this environment of heightened uncertainty, our strategy remains to stay flexible, continually monitor significant shifts in market conditions, and adjust our positioning as needed—all while keeping the long-term impact on portfolio performance at the forefront of our decision-making process. We also continue to explore additional resilience strategies, including the addition of short dated credit and Japanese yen exposures following the recent addition of TIPS to Polaris. In moments like these, when time horizons shrink and behavioural temptation rises, it is precisely the time to lean into the discipline and investment principles that underpins our long-term approach.”
