Fund Transfer Question

arnhemrd

My ISA funds are currently invested with Cofunds through an adviser, (adviser no longer required as i think he guided me to make the investments to maximise his own commission), and Cofunds through Willis Owen, (2 seperate accounts).

The reason for wanting to move the investments is because of the high TERs.

My Question is:-

Can i transfer to Vanguard Life Strategy within Cofunds or do i need to transfer out of Cofunds and into Vanguard, if that is possible?

What is the way to go about this transfer?

What charges would this attract and what are the TERs within Vanguard?

Ive looked on the web for this info but im not very literate with the financial jargon, i just need it explaining in plain english.

Im also looking to move my Aviva with profits bond as it does'nt seem to be performing very well.

I put in 10k in November 2001 and todays surrender value is only £14705.

How do i go about moving it?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks, John.

Lokolo

Yes you can transfer. You will need to fill in an ISA transfer form with the new provider.

There maybe charges for transferring out with the original platform. But if you are changing funds, you may as well sell your holdings, keep everything in cash, then transfer, then buy new funds.

Your questions of "What are the TERs of the vanguard funds" is frankly lazy. You say you are not very literate with financial jargon so I have to ask - why are you wanting lower TERs? Or have you just read it on a forum and wanting to follow everyone else?

jimjames

You can remain with Cofunds are just re-register with a discount broker like Cavendish which will mean you get all the renewal commission which is generally 0.5% for most funds.

If the funds chosen are still the right ones for you this may well be a cheaper/easier option than selling them all and purchasing Vanguard funds.

Daniel_Elkington

tbh Vanguard do not register on most platforms (CoFunds is a platform) as they do not pay the platform any rebate, which is why they are so cheap.

There is no rebate therefore there is no renewal on the Vanguard LifeStrategy series.

I'm personally very excited about vanguard at the moment, it's just they don't have a massive amount of history on their LifeStrategy series and so don't fit in with our research methodology.

I'm not entirely sure Vanguard have their own ISA wrapper.

You could try Aviva, they may be able to offer the vanguard funds (approx 0.3% TER and 0 initial charge) for this deal, but they may not. I think Standard Life do the same.

I would question what service your adviser is performing. If they are simply charging you an on-going amount for no service then this is clearly inappropriate. If they are reviewing your portfolio and providing a service...

Additionally, how did you learn about Vanguard Lifestrategy, they are very new and very cheap. Most advisers I speak to haven't heard of them.

Finally, what do you class as high TER's. An active portfolio should operate in the 1.4-1.8% TER range and generally outperform the markets by a decent margin, including costs for the adviser. This is cheap compared to some multi-managers that seem increasingly popular nowadays and should provide greater performance.

dunstonh

adviser no longer required as i think he guided me to make the investments to maximise his own commission

Unlikely to be the case where he used Cofunds. Standard retail charges applied with them.

The reason for wanting to move the investments is because of the high TERs.

Cofunds themselves are a bundled platform and dont have explict charges (yet). So, that leaves the funds. They typically offer funds which pay the platform a cut of the AMC or a marketing rate to be on there (as is typical with bundled platforms).

Vanguard is a fund house that does not pay bundled platforms. So, you need to use an unbundled platform (or hybrid). That typically means you pay a platform charge on top of the Vanguard fund charges. This platform charge will vary.

Are you looking to invest money to make money or to save charges? You seem to be focused on charges without taking any notice of where you want to invest or how you want to invest.

Im also looking to move my Aviva with profits bond as it does'nt seem to be performing very well.

Compared to what over the same period? What alternative would you have utilised in 2001 which you think would have done better (without using hindsight)?

gadgetmind

Daniel_Elkington wrote: »

I'm not entirely sure Vanguard have their own ISA wrapper.

You can invest directly with Vanguard (not sure about wrappers) but there is a £100k minimum. Vanguard trackers are available via HL (£24 fee pa in an ISA), BestInvest (£60 pa but this covers lots of other options), and also Allance Trust but I don't know the fees off the top of my head.

Additionally, how did you learn about Vanguard Lifestrategy, they are very new and very cheap.

They are barely a secret and have been around for over six months.

http://monevator.com/vanguard-lifestrategy/

They've also been discussed hereabouts at length. They actually have a higher TER than holding the underlying trackers directly, but you avoid rebalancing cost/hassle.

Most advisers I speak to haven't heard of them.

No trail = not interested, IME.

An active portfolio should operate in the 1.4-1.8% TER range and generally outperform the markets by a decent margin, including costs for the adviser.

The available evidence tells us that they generally underperform "the markets" by a margin that's accounted for by the magnitude of their fees. If you have peer reviewed evidence to the contrary, then I'd be interested to see it.