Vestra Wealth Management?

Rollinghome

dunstonh wrote: »

Also, 35% does not look awful for a cautious portfolio. Lower risk portfolios are not going to go up as much in growth periods.

I hope most people would grasp that much. Which was why I said: "So while +35% looks pretty awful in that context" i.e. any comparison with the FTSE or emerging markets. And why I said it is meaningless without knowing how aggressive or cautious the investments were. Outstanding for cash, lousy for equities, over the given period. Without knowing what the investments were it means nothing.

Domain.Rider wrote: »

Funds started transferring early in January, with reinvestments continuing through January.... Already the portfolio growth has nominally more than covered all the IFA fees...

If you mean from Jan 09 since when both equities and bonds are hugely up then I would certainly hope so. The main thing is that you're happy. There's an interesting tool here for calculating how much charges demolish returns over the years that you might want to try: www.candidmoney.com/investment/unittrusts.aspx


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Domain.Rider

Rollinghome wrote: »

If you mean from Jan 09 since when both equities and bonds are hugely up then I would certainly hope so. The main thing is that you're happy.

No, from Jan 2010 to now (6 weeks, approx). I'm happy, but I haven't put all my eggs in the Vestra basket, I still have some cash, NS&I bonds & certificates, and an ISA paying 6%...

There's an interesting tool here for calculating how much charges demolish returns over the years that you might want to try: www.candidmoney.com/investment/unittrusts.aspx.

Thanks for that.

Domain.Rider

A quick update for anyone interested:

After approx 1 year with Vestra in a medium risk portfolio, with no new contributions:

Overall growth: 13.62% (after fees)

ISA funds component: 10.84%
Plain funds component: 15.21%

Service remains excellent.

Domain.Rider

Further update:

After a turbulent year with some big losses and a slow recovery, the overall growth after 2 years is 14.59% net.

No point giving the ISA and core fund separately as the the yearly ISA allowance is being taken from the core funds and transferred to the ISA account each April, so the absolute growth of each no longer reflects their current values.

Russe11

Domain.Rider wrote: »

No, from Jan 2010 to now (6 weeks, approx). I'm happy, but I haven't put all my eggs in the Vestra basket, I still have some cash, NS&I bonds & certificates, and an ISA paying 6%...



Thanks for that.

where are you getting a ISA at 6% please?

Domain.Rider

Russe11 wrote: »

where are you getting a ISA at 6% please?

Remember that rate was posted over two years ago. The current rate is 4% net of charges.

It was originally a mini insurance ISA with the Druids Sheffield Friendly Society that was converted into a stocks & shares ISA, but the society retained a specified interest rate format for the customer, which has dropped over time, but still remains extremely competitive.

This product hasn't been shown on their web site since the conversion, so I seriously doubt it is available to new customers, although they do show a standard stocks & shares ISA. Nevertheless, it is an indicator that friendly societies can provide considerably higher returns than the big players if you can find the right product at the right time - and they are covered by the FSA guarantee.

IronWolf

dunstonh wrote: »

Good. That brings the charges down and makes more sense and is what you would expect.

The banks that do discretionary invesmtent management tend to use unit trusts so you pay not only the UT charges but the banks charges on top. Lloyds Private Banking is amongst the worst as they always seem to be heavy on Scottish Widows funds as well (which they own).

The whole point of using a discretionary investment manager is that you get access to investments that IFAs do not have access to. Most IFAs cannot provide advice on investment trusts, ETFs, shares etc. Discretionary investment managers can. So, in this case, you appear to be getting exactly what you expect from a DIM.

Why can IFAs provide advice on UTs but not ITs? Just because ITs are listed on the exchange?

I think the OP is being screwed tbh, he will be paying the IT managers, then the 'portfolio managers', and then an IFA for doing sweet f' all.

Domain.Rider

IronWolf wrote: »

I think the OP is being screwed tbh, he will be paying the IT managers, then the 'portfolio managers', and then an IFA for doing sweet f' all.

Depends how you look at it; I'm paying them a set fee to manage my investments because I don't want to do it myself. Whether they pay the IFA from the fee is entirely up to them. I can see daily valuations, the full details of all transactions, the interest, refunded trail commissions, dividends and equalisations that accrue, and if I want I can change any aspect of the investment process. So far, I'm happy with it - it's saved me a lot of hassle.

If you know how I can get better returns for low to medium risk without taking an active role myself, I'm open to suggestions.

IronWolf

Domain.Rider wrote: »

Depends how you look at it; I'm paying them a set fee to manage my investments because I don't want to do it myself. Whether they pay the IFA from the fee is entirely up to them. I can see daily valuations, the full details of all transactions, the interest, refunded trail commissions, dividends and equalisations that accrue, and if I want I can change any aspect of the investment process. So far, I'm happy with it - it's saved me a lot of hassle.

If you know how I can get better returns for low to medium risk without taking an active role myself, I'm open to suggestions.

Personally, I would say cutting out the middle man and just going through an IFA is probably cheaper for you and has just as much chance of achieving the same results before charges.

Yes they can't recommend Investment Trusts, but to be honest if you did want exposure to that it wouldn't take long to ask around on this forum and find some good ones you can instruct your IFA to invest in.

All the other functions like portfolio management and asset allocation are what an IFA can do, and if you invest in trackers rather than managed funds you will save another layer of charges, most funds dont beat trackers anyway and I question the ability of most IFAs to choose the ones that will beat them.

for e.g. under the proposed you would pay about 1.8% to a fund manager, 1.0% to portfolio manager and 0.5% to IFA.

You could just pay 0.5% to IFA, and in a mixture of trackers and funds can bring down the management charges to more like 0.8%. So saving around 2% each year just in charges. The IFA can then do asset allocation, rebalancing etc for you.

2% doesnt sound a lot, but if you take 100k and compound by 5% over 10 years, and 7% over 10 years the difference is 148k vs 172k. These charges really do cost a lot over the long run and it's important to minimise them.

Domain.Rider

IronWolf wrote: »

You could just pay 0.5% to IFA.

Maybe times have changed - when I was looking, most of the ones I talked to were after about 1.5% pa, and a couple at 1% wanted dealing fees on top.

Thanks, I'll have another look around.