Standard Life Sterling Fund

Perfect_Choice

Standard Life really need to get there act together here. There is a clear demand from investors for a fund which has virtually no risk of loss of funds. It is not growth which is the issue right now, but protection of the fund value you have right now and Standard Life seems to be the worst now at providing a “safe haven” home for funds when times are tough. Managed Cash seems to be the nearest to this but too late for some with this recent 5% drop in the Sterling Fund. They should certainly be punished on misleading literature and the post above on the 2008 Standard Life guide with Sterling Fund allocated to cash wit its own description, is a clear error in my view.

I have or had access to other “deposit” funds under other pension schemes including Skandia Deposit, Legal & General Cash Fund, Norwich Union Deposit Fund. All have provided a better return than Standard Life and non have had to be re-evaluated. While returns have reduced on these other funds as would be expected, they still outperform the current return of Sterling and Managed Cash funds (in fact the annual equivalent return from the SL Stakeholder Managed Cash Fund over the past month was only 0.41% based on bid price of 100.833205p today versus 100.798833p in the 23rd December!) If it wasn’t for the 0.6% bonus I get on my Pension One fund and simply finding the time to move my SL pension, it would be far better to move my cash elsewhere (I already have a SIPP by the way which I use for high risk investments which are equities right now, but like to balance funds across scheme to balance risk).

louisrossini

I am similar position. There are aparently 100,000 of us.

I have written a strong letter demanding reimbursement. This was the only fund available within my Sipp which was sold as a safe temporary home for funds. As early as October last year when I moved all equity cash here, they were telling my IFA all was healthy and predicting a 4pc return.

Standard Life have behaved badly and the more people who demand compensation the better.

Read the Guardian article of yesterday's date. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/21/standard-life-toxic-mortgages

SL are compensating people who invested in the fund after December 23. But they claim this is not due to others.

I find it incredible, literally, that this leading company did not realise until December 23 that they had toxic debt as a major part of the fund - when the whole global financial world has been in meltdown for many months because of toxic property debts.

Whether it is a matter of SL incompetence or deceit, I hope everyone affected hits them with a claim for compensation. If SL refuse, we should appeal through the national financial regulation process - I believe there is a responsible ombudsman.

Only by making a loud noise will this arrogant company pay attention.

I hope more people will add to this string - 100,00 investors are affected - and even build a joint campaign to which SL must listen.

jameskerr

I think we should all write to the FSA, power in numbers and all that, but also contact Money Marketing about it. I think there could definitely be some issues about the transparency on the literature. The reporter who ran the story is called Helen Pow and according to the website her email is helen.pow@centaur.co.uk.

irondog

wonderman wrote: »

The mgd cash fund does not hold asset based securities - it is invested in gilts and bonds + cash deposits. I would be happy to invest in this fund as a low risk fund - only issue is the high annual charge. Much better than the sterling fund which imho is a high risk fund dressed up as cash. The manager of the sterling fund should be fired.

My point is that as a MM fund, the Managed 'cash' fund COULD hold anything that is allowed in the MM mandate. So yes, it might be cash and gilts today.....but tomorrow...who knows???!

Myrmidon_J

wonderman wrote: »

...

The manager of the sterling fund should be fired.

I believe she lost her job in September, though I could be mistaken. (Naturally, this had nothing to do with the impending doom orchestrated by her minions... )

cogito

This fund is still dropping.

wonderman

louisrossini wrote: »

I am similar position. There are aparently 100,000 of us.

I have written a strong letter demanding reimbursement. This was the only fund available within my Sipp which was sold as a safe temporary home for funds. As early as October last year when I moved all equity cash here, they were telling my IFA all was healthy and predicting a 4pc return.

Standard Life have behaved badly and the more people who demand compensation the better.

Read the Guardian article of yesterday's date. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/21/standard-life-toxic-mortgages

SL are compensating people who invested in the fund after December 23. But they claim this is not due to others.

I find it incredible, literally, that this leading company did not realise until December 23 that they had toxic debt as a major part of the fund - when the whole global financial world has been in meltdown for many months because of toxic property debts.

Whether it is a matter of SL incompetence or deceit, I hope everyone affected hits them with a claim for compensation. If SL refuse, we should appeal through the national financial regulation process - I believe there is a responsible ombudsman.

Only by making a loud noise will this arrogant company pay attention.

I hope more people will add to this string - 100,00 investors are affected - and even build a joint campaign to which SL must listen.

I fully agree with your point about the date - it proves that they are incompetent beyond belief if they claim that they did not realise there was a problem until 23 December.

robber2

Not directly related to the Sterling fund but I hope someone here may be able to explain this one to me;

Both the Henderson Cash Fund (accumulation) http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund_performance/sedol/0422853 and the Legal and General Cash Fund (also acc) display smooth performance graphs and claim a decent yield. They invest in the 'money makets' and surely should be directly affected by the drop in LIBOR. Can anyone explain their inexorable growth?

PS Not a Standard Life investor but my thoughts are with you

wonderman

robber2 wrote: »

Not directly related to the Sterling fund but I hope someone here may be able to explain this one to me;

Both the Henderson Cash Fund (accumulation) http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund_performance/sedol/0422853 and the Legal and General Cash Fund (also acc) display smooth performance graphs and claim a decent yield. They invest in the 'money makets' and surely should be directly affected by the drop in LIBOR. Can anyone explain their inexorable growth?

PS Not a Standard Life investor but my thoughts are with you

They are invested in a range of investments such as bonds, gilts etc - not just cash on deposit - that's just my guess anyway. Looks like they had the good sense not to invest in risky mortgage backed assets like SL saw fit to do.

shaunrc

Hi

This issue has been pursued again today by Moneybox on Radio 4. I had contacted them with my thoughts and when I spoke to them they said that many others had too.

They had a lawyer on the programme who looked at the Standard Life Sterling Fund fact sheet from March 2008 who said that in his opinion it failed the FSA test of being "clear fair and not misleading" and that earlier years should also be looked at. He said that he felt the fund was in the wrong assets for its objectives as mortgage backed securities were of too long a term to be in such a fund. In other words a "cash" fund should have assets of a much shorter term.

Others on the programme mentioned that other fund managers (for example Scottish Widows) had spotted this potential problem back when the credit crunch began back in the summer of 2007 and changed their cash fund structures then. So another question for Standard Life is why didnt they do this when other companies spotted the problem?

So good news is that the pressure is building on Standard Life to ( belatedly) do the right thing.