CTF - A very negative experience with Foreign & Colonial (F&C) Investments

AussiePeter

After receiving my Child Trust Fund voucher from HM government, I started investigating where it could be put to best use. One of the companies I contacted, twice in this case, was F&C investments, with a request that they inform me which of their specific CTF shares accounts did not invest in munitions nor tobacco companies.

In spite of chasing them up twice, they neither returned my calls nor contacted me with the required information.

So if you have any ethical concerns about investments for your offspring - you know who to steer clear of.

Reaper

I think you may be overstating your "very negative" experience. If I listed every company that failed to respond to my questions it would flood the board.

A quick Google search found 2 ethical funds run by F&C here. Though I don't think they are available via the Investment Trust route normally used for their child accounts.

Rollinghome

No excuse for bad manners but I assume the amount of their time that the possibilty of a £250 voucher being invested with them justified was fairly limited.

wriggly

My experience of F&C Customer Service has always been excellent. How did you contact them? I have received good responses to both email and phone queries, even where there was no money in it for them.

I believe none of their funds available through the CTF preclude investing in securities based on any particular ethical stance.

Ethical investing is a minefield. I prefer to invest amorally (note, not immorally) and achieve my ethical objectives by other means.

Family Investments has an Ethical CTF http://www.familyinvestments.co.uk/ctfguide.aspx but according to http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/FreeBuyersGuides/money/childtrustfunds.aspx it actually scores lower than F&C!

jimjames

I've also found F&C to be very helpful & efficient in my dealings with them.

Did you check the fund details on their website? They are normally very good in listing all the companies that they invest in but unless they specifically market it as an "ethical" fund there is no guarantee that if it doesn't contain companies you disapprove of today that it won't contain them tomorrow.

As such it should be very clear by looking at the fund remits to see if they are ethical or not in which case it should have been a fairly quick query to answer.