Can anyone recommend a stakeholder - we want to transfer?

jolenejolene

Hi,

my husband is self employed and has a stakeholder pension with M&S. It has not performed that well and he has lost confidence in it a bit.

He would like to transfer it to another scheme, but we don't know how to go about judging which is a good one? We thought if we stuck to one of the well known financial companies (rather than M&S!) we may stand more chance of not being skint when older!!

Can anyone advise - should we change from M&S - and who to???

Many thanks

Jolene

dunstonh

Depends on what funds you want, size of fund, time to selected retirement age, any contributions you want to make and any addons you may want bolted on.

Then you have some providers that will offer better terms if you buy online, some that will deal only through IFAs. Best to ignore all the tied companies. So how you intend to "purchase" this product is a consideration too.

Tel_4

You are in a low cost Stakeholder Personal Pension Plan already.

The stock market fell approx 40% between 2001-2002 but has recovered since, so if any of your funds were in "equities" (stocks and shares) you would have seen a fall in the value of your investments. (You and a few million others....)

Pension plans need time to grow.

I dont know when you intend to retire.

This is crucial as this should determine where your funds in the main should be invested, eg, equities for longer term growth, or safer funds such as "cash" or "fixed interest".

You should have a range of funds within your current M&S plan which you could "switch" into if you are not happy with your current fund performance, but take financial advice before doing so.

Only if you do not have the option to switch funds or you are unhappy with the service that you have received from M&S, should you consider transferring.

Remember, there is no guarantee that any other Company will perform better over time or offer a better service.

T.

paul666

As a first step to comparing providers, you might want to check the government's fsa site:
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/tables

This will assume that all providers invest in funds that provide the same return.
This will at least allow you to compare M&S with others.

*which* fund *you* might want to invest in is a whole bigger question.

dunstonh

M&S only offer a small range of funds (3 IIRC). There are no low risk funds or low/medium funds.

jolenejolene

So - all M&S funds are medium/high risk? Is that right?

I am off to check the web site mentioned - thanks!

dunstonh

The website isnt really much use as it just lets you know SOME of the providers that are available.

M&S actually have 4 funds. One is an international fund which would be classed as med/high. One is a balanced managed fund which is medium (for balance managed read boring and useless most of the time). They do have a fixed interest and a cash fund. The cash fund is useful for those in the last year or two to go to retirement and fixed interest is useful for a percentage of the pension fund. However, there are no other investment areas.

jolenejolene

Hi again,

We invest 50/50 in the International and Balanced Managed fund. Should we change to more in International then? We are willing to take a risk as there are yeeeeeeeeeears (!) left to go. However, we don't want to stay with M&S if they are not very reliable? Ho Hum! I do know that we had better do something soon though - with the stakeholder schemes changing!
HELP!

thanks again

dunstonh

It would be inappropriate for me to recommend funds on the website. Risk is a personal thing and everything is different.

From a personal point of view. I wouldnt touch the M&S pension and can see no reasons from a professional view why I would recommend it either.

paul666

You're not really sure about this are you? The way I see it, you have four choices:
1. You transfer the pension to the cheapest stakeholder (charges wise) provider you can find and arrange for it to be invested 100% in a uk all-share tracker since these beat most other types of fund.

2. You approach an IFA and let them take care of it all for you.

3. You make some other kind of retirement planning such as ISA's or property.

4. You save nothing since you feel you won't be able to build up a fund large enough to escape the means-tested benefit trap.

Why don't you take a free intro sessions with a couple of local IFA's and take some time out and read up on it a bit.

dunstonh

1. You transfer the pension to the cheapest stakeholder (charges wise) provider you can find and arrange for it to be invested 100% in a uk all-share tracker since these beat most other types of fund.

except uk trackers havent beaten much for some years (partly down to the fact trackers dont do as well in poor stockmarket performance and partly down to the fact that the UK has been the worst stockmarket performer out of the G8 countries). Plus placing all your money in one sector is foolish anyway.

On average the UK (all companies) has been the best performing sector once every 5 to 7 years.