Fund purchase from self-select proceeds

rdtrdt

I've built up a self-select stocks & shares ISA over a number of years, directly investing in shares, investment trusts (ITs), ETFs, etc. I'm now interested in pursuing a less hands-on strategy for some of the money, and so shall be interested in purchasing one or more (OEIC) funds, still within an ISA wrapper.

Any purchases would most likely be funded from uninvested cash that's currently in the self-select ISA wrapper, as opposed to making new subscriptions. I'll want to minimise upfront and ongoing fees, from both the fund and any platform/ISA provider I need to use.

I've no experience of buying funds, so would appreciate how I go about this, as it all appears rather less transparent than purchasing regular listed instruments, that I'm used to...

Do I need to be using a funds supermarket platform? Who should I be looking at? Do they all offer similar access to the same array of funds?

Can I park a chunk of uninvested ISA cash (via transfer from my self-select ISA) with a fund supermarket, such that I can then decide at leisure when to time the purchase of a fund (in the same way I can choose when to buy an IT within my self-select ISA)? i.e. in a very similar way with how I operate my self-select ISA; or does it work differently to that?

Can I do all of this with my current self-select ISA provider (Interactive Investor)? Or do I need to, or am I better, looking elsewhere?

Any input appreciated!

Linton

You can buy funds using your iii ISA account although this doesnt seem to be well advertised. You simply use the SEDOL (or is it the ISIN) code rather than the share code.

How iii compare on cost I dont know.

All fund supermarkets I have looked at offer a very wide choice of funds. You can expect them all to offer the big names, it's the rather more obscure funds (or fund managers) that may not be offered by some.

Fund supermarkets work just like online Share ISAs. Fidelity is purely funds,H L handles both shares and funds like iii.

On cash - in practice you can use cash temporarily, though HMRC would not be happy if you left the whole of your £10100 annual S&S ISA allowance permanently as cash. There dont seem to be clear rules on this.

rdtrdt

Linton wrote: »

On cash - in practice you can use cash temporarily, though HMRC would not be happy if you left the whole of your £10100 annual S&S ISA allowance permanently as cash. There dont seem to be clear rules on this.

I'm not planning on leaving the cash permanently in cash - rather, I wondered whether the process for funds supermarkets works as it would if I was transferring some cash to another self-select provider, ie. transfer some of the currently uninvested cash from iii to the other provider, where it can sit there in my account until I choose to make the purchase. And if I sell, I can move back into cash (temporarily), until I decide what to do next.

In effect, can I operate similarly to as I do within my self-select wrapper?

Apologies if I'm not explaining myself clearly.

Linton

rdtrdt wrote: »

I'm not planning on leaving the cash permanently in cash - rather, I wondered whether the process for funds supermarkets works as it would if I was transferring some cash to another self-select provider, ie. transfer some of the currently uninvested cash from iii to the other provider, where it can sit there in my account until I choose to make the purchase. And if I sell, I can move back into cash (temporarily), until I decide what to do next.

In effect, can I operate similarly to as I do within my self-select wrapper?

yes, within the fund supermarket ISA the process is the same as for shares.

Transfering cash from a share ISA with iii to another ISA with a different fund supermarket is an ISA transfer and therefore takes time and a bit of hassle. So its not something you would want to do frequently. If you do decide to use 2 different online suppliers I would suggest you manage them independently.

masonic

Sticking with iii will be the most convenient option. However, good fund-based platforms will allow you to buy a fair proportion of funds with no initial charges and with a rebate of annual management charges. If iii don't do that, it's worth looking at alternatives, e.g. HL.

rdtrdt

Thanks for input so far.

Does anyone have a shortlist of the platforms I should be looking at in order to minimise fees?

I presume (unfortunately) they don't all offer access to the same range of funds (or perhaps I'm mistaken?). I'm likely to be interested in some of the managed multi-asset funds, such as Newton Real Return, Artemis Strategic Assets, Troy Trojan, Standard Life Global Absolute Return, Ruffer Absolute Rerun, IM Distinction Diversified Real Return (if up-front and TERs can be brought to acceptable levels).

masonic

rdtrdt wrote: »

Does anyone have a shortlist of the platforms I should be looking at in order to minimise fees?

I use Hargreaves Lansdown, but my only experience of other platforms is comparing the costs of my own investments periodically (I tend to find HL is cheapest).

Since I have easy access to searching HL through a keyword bookmark...
http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/n/newton-real-return-class-a-income
http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/a/artemis-strategic-assets-retail-accumulation
http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/c/cf-trojan-class-i-accumulation
http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/s/standard-life-inv-global-abs-return-strategies-accumulation
and HL doesn't appear to carry the last two. That should at least set a benchmark for you.