Standard Life Personal Pension

savingforoz

I'm picking up the idea from other thread that generally Standard Life pensions aren't particularly good. Is this the case? I am concerned because my IFA has recently contracted me back in to SERPS, and transferred the fund that I built up with Norwich Union whilst I was contracted out into another fund that I already had with Standard Life. I have had doubts for a while about him (lovely guy personally, but takes forever to do things, doesn't return phone calls and on at least 1 occasion I believe he has lied to me). Having had an NPI pension in the past :eek: , I just want to get things right for the future.

Thanks for any opinions/ideas.

Update - since posting I've been doing some research on https://www.trustnet.com, and my funds don't look as if they're performing too badly - 50% of the fund is in SL Ethical One. Maybe not the best, but not the worst, either. May be time to transfer from the Ethical find to something else, however.

dunstonh

I'm picking up the idea from other thread that generally Standard Life pensions aren't particularly good. Is this the case?

Offers a very good fund range and generally good service but not as good as perhaps it was 3-4 years ago. Most versions have no fund based discounts but as mentioned a thread yesterday about L&G, L&G have are slightly cheaper but have less funds than standard life and poorer service.

I rarely transfer out of Standard Life. Yes you can get 0.1-0.2% cheaper in places but you can build decent portfolios with Std Life and that is more important than a tiny difference in charges.

savingforoz

Thanks dunstonh, as usual you have been very helpful. I agree, I'd rather have a better fund range rather than worry about a small difference in charges. (My IFA tells me that as my fund has now reached a certain level, the charges are reduced anyway). I did check through the fund range when on Trustnet and was impressed with its range, so overall my mind has been set at rest.

ReportInvestor

savingforoz wrote:

I'm picking up the idea from other thread that generally Standard Life pensions aren't particularly good. Is this the case?

Was that from plumb1's comments on his WP pension?

As you've discovered from your own research, Standard Life has some good funds.

It is building up a reputation, most unusual for insurers , of having an in-house investment team that can challenge top fund managers .

This is hopefully good news for future Standard Life shareholders. Or rather, if Standard Life succeeds as a company it will be by building up this other non-with profits business - and it seems to be attracting good new business e.g. tendering for Local Council pension fund management.

See this IA link - Standard Life's new business soars in 2005

And its SIPP hasn't done badly, either .

MSErs who are existing or prospective Standard investors should not confuse the mismanagement of the WP fund 2000-2004, with the future prospects for Standard's other funds.

Chrismaths

As an investment manager, I've used Standard life bond funds to great success over the past few years. It does help when you can buy institutional units though.

I'm worried about the SL float though. It seems that the main purpose of the float is to keep the present management team in a job, rather than to release value.

ReportInvestor

Except for Crombie the key players in the current Standard management team like Trevor Matthews and Alison Reed are new and were brought in to make Standard a success as a Plc.

Surely, as an investment manager, you would agree that a float is likely to release more value than a trade sale, privately negotiated, before flotation.

One of the problems, of course, is that the past management has destroyed so much value.

In terms of "value" and the with profits fund, it seems that this demutualisation protects the interests of WP investors more than some previous LifeCo conversions - not least through the injection of capital into the WP fund, achieved via flotation.

I'd be interested to hear your views, though.

Chrismaths

Sure - I think the float will serve the investors more than the status quo - but there were two things that caught my eye.

1) They rejected an approach from Resolution outright. This could have been a good deal for SL WP holders, as it would have been possible to negotiate an uplift in the capital injection, and Resolution would pay more than on an open float as SL is a good strategic fit for them - with good cost savings. The only reason I can think of to not even talk to Resolution was the fact that the management would have been out a job.

2) They are offering 1 bonus share after a year for every 20 held since floatation. They have stated that this is to avoid all the small shareholders dumping their stock at floatation - but there would have been more than enough demand from institutions, tracker funds etc to soak up any liquidity. The reason IMO is that they want to keep small shareholders on the register (depite the extra costs this incurs) as they wield next to no power - it is unlikely that 100,000 small shareholders would band together to demand a change of direction for the company, or the head of the management team, whereas a band of city institutions would be more than happy to do this to protect their investments.

It seems that there are other motives at work than simply the best deal for WP bond holders (and by extension, shareholders).

EdInvestor

The only reason I can think of to not even talk to Resolution was the fact that the management would have been out a job.

Management said the offer was pretty derisory - in the area of 3-4 bn, whereas the shares are likely to bounce to at least 6bn on listing, I'd have thought.:)

You might also be underestimating the serious difficulty management would have in getting a Yes for DM to a zombie fund from the members.

Remember they have to get a 75% Yes vote.

You only have to look at the MSE endowment forum to get an immediate idea about what Resolution is doing to the policies of the poor Royal and Sun endowment holders.

Asset stripping just isn't in it. :mad:

There would be blood in the streets of Edinburgh if Standard management tried to pull a scam like that, after their disastrous incompetence in the past.