Skandia MultiFund vs Celestia

Sax

I was hoping someone can offer some advice on whether I should remain with my classic Skandia MultiFund pension or transfer to the newer Celestia platform. I am struggling with all the charges involved and which one offers the best value for money.

For simplicity, lets say I have 250k spread over 25 funds. Any lump sum payments are made at 103% unit allocation and nil commission to my old IFA whom I have not seen for years (and nor particularly want to).

Every 6 months I review fund performance, and probably only need to transfer a total of 3 (maybe 4) under-performing fund each year, if necessary.

Any advice and tips are much appreciated.

Thank you.
-- John.

dunstonh

I was hoping someone can offer some advice on whether I should remain with my classic Skandia MultiFund pension or transfer to the newer Celestia platform. I am struggling with all the charges involved and which one offers the best value for money.

Skandia Multi-funds ceased to exist about a year ago and was merged with Selestia. Selestia was then re-branded as Skandia Investment Solutions (although for technical reasons you still see reference to Skandia Multi-funds in some of the legal docs).

So your question seems a little strange.

Loughton_Monkey

Sax wrote: »

Every 6 months I review fund performance, and probably only need to transfer a total of 3 (maybe 4) under-performing fund each year, if necessary.

Interesting!

How do you define "necessary"?

Sax

Apologies, the missing information is I have an Executive Pension (EP4) plan. which has not been automatically moved to the new Collective Retirement Account, under the Skandia Investment Solutions Platform.

Define "necessary" .. what an interesting question!

Generally I look at the 1yr and 3 yr performance figures using:
a) Skandia Fund List (downloadable pdfs) which give the OBSR / Citywire rating.
b) Morningstar Rating and their Analyst Research data.

Basically alarm bells ring for me if a fund is below the category norm, or in the 3rd / 4th quartiles, necessitating a look at alternates.

dunstonh

The Skandia Life pensions were good in their day. They were the first provider to offer external funds. However, like many that lead a certain market, they are often overtaken by others years down the road. Skandia Life went from being one of the best to one of the most expensive over the years. Through a merger, the Skandia Investment Solutions product offerings were far better value than the Skandia Life pensions. So, Skandia has recently been closing many of its plans on the Skandia Life plan as most of the money is going into Skandia Investment Solutions now. The fund selection on the Skandia CRA is closer to 1000 compared to around 400 on the Skandia Life. Plus, the Skandia CRA uses unit trust/OEIC funds rather than pension funds (which the Skandia life pension used). In most cases, the move from Skandia Life to Skandia CRA is one of the easiest decisions you could ever make.