A previous article cast doubt on the widely held view that St James’s Place (SJP) is the UK’s biggest independent wealth management firm.

It may be the biggest in terms of assets under management and administration (AUMA), the preferred metric of many analysts and commentators, in terms of sizing both wealth management markets as well as the firms within them.

But SJP falls some way behind a fellow constituent of the FTSE 100 on a number of metrics.

Bristol-based Hargreaves Lansdown outscores SJP, along with every other “independent” (i.e. non-bank owned) wealth manager on just about every critical met...