"and now for something completely different!"

whiteflag_3

In researching answers to my other thread decided to check out the FSA comparative tables to see how competitive their products are.

They (SJP) do not participate in the tables - anyone know why?

innovate

why have you opened a separate thread for this?

whiteflag_3

because its a different subject

innovate

OK, come forward, why are you asking questions about St James partnership, and why does this subject warrant two separate threads?

whiteflag_3

innovate wrote:

OK, come forward, why are you asking questions about St James partnership, and why does this subject warrant two separate threads?

Because one thing led to another and as they are (as far as I know) completely unrelated, I started another thread. Look at the timings and you will see the first post was made during the afternoon.

I think I have asked two fair questions , do know something we dont?

dunstonh

I am probably best not answering as I know where you are coming from. However, I am also not a fan of the FSA tables as they are so inaccurate and do not reflect real world business. If I was a provider I would probably boycott them on the grounds of not all providers giving figures on a level playing field. Hmm, that could be thread number 3

EdInvestor

St James Place and Skandia are the two companies that refuse to provide info for the FSA tables.

It's fairly obvious why not, I'd have thought.

Deemy

EdInvestor wrote:

St James Place and Skandia are the two companies that refuse to provide info for the FSA tables.

It's fairly obvious why not, I'd have thought.

Yeh, just for those not in the joke.. they are crap performers !

dunstonh

Deemy wrote:

Yeh, just for those not in the joke.. they are crap performers !

That is a newbie response Deemy. How on earth can you say that Skandia are crap performers? They have over 300 funds available. You are saying all 300 funds are crap. Yet the performance tables are dominated by Skandia funds at the top.

On the charges front, Skandia are mid range on bonds but can actually be cheaper than stakeholder on pensions. So they are not crap there either.

cheerfulcat

You can judge the funds for yourselves; the reports are here. They don't look that much worse than most managed funds; I suspect that, like Skandia, SJP are embarrassed by the hefty charges they add when wrapping the fund in their own label ( the funds are mostly managed by well respected houses AFAICS ). The tracker, for example, has an admitted TER of 1.5%-ish.

dunstonh

Keep seeing reference to hefty charges with Skanida. Best have some examples to clarify. 30 year old putting £10k gross into a pension. Assume full commision terms (so no commission discounting to effect providers) and default investment fund. Commencement age 65. These would be the fund values at 7% pa. growth:

1 - Skandia Life Personal Pension £80,200
2 - Friends Provident Individual Personal Pension £77,900
3 - Friends Provident Individual Stakeholder Pension £77,900
4 - Norwich Union Your Pension Select (PP) £76,000
5 - Clerical Medical Future Proof Individual Personal Pension £75,600
6 - Clerical Medical Future Proof Individual Stakeholder Pension £75,600
7 - Norwich Union Your Pension (Stakeholder) £75,300
8 - Scottish Widows Stakeholder Pension £73,000

There were others below this but you get the point. It should also be noted that there were some no responders as their systems go offline at weekends.

So, Skandia in this case had the lowest charges.

Doing the same with bonds (but using 100k over 10 years), Skandia were 17 out of 24 responding. So they don't do as well there. Although I bet if you were to add in the tied advice channels, they would mostly appear below Skandia so there has to be some perspective.

So, we do have to be careful when slagging off a company due to charges. There are times that their products will be cheap and other times they will be expensive.