H-L charging structure

Porcupine

Gaaraz wrote: »

I'm looking to buy some Aberdeen Asian Smaller Companies shares - looks like they cost £5.95 as a one off per trade, so buy as much as I can in one go? Thanks

You missed the magic word 'from'. It's £5.95 if you do 20 deals per month. If you do only one it's £11.95.

Note that's an investment trust. There's also an Aberdeen Global Asian Smaller Companies which is an open-ended fund - there's no deal fee, but I don't know how the funds themselves compare.

Rollinghome

jimjames wrote: »

Just seen this absolute classic on the HL website. Referring to the Lindsell Train UK fund....

Poor old Dampers.

A fund that only charges an AMC of 0.65% isn't going to win much favour with HL when the majority pay them at least 0.75% from platform fee and trail commission. Lindsell Train seemed to get the message and launched their new Global Equity fund with a substantially higher AMC with room for the lovely margins HL prefers.

Whoopee... straight into the Wealth 150 with no track record while the very successful and cheaper Lindsell Train fund with the same two managers remains outside.

Another way would have been the Troy Trojan wheeze. HL apparently didn't rate that fund much either as long as investors could buy the O class at just 1.00% AMC. So Troy obligingly closed the O class to new investors who then had to buy the I class at 1.5% AMC. That did the trick, straight into Mr Dampier's Wealth 150.

Which of course makes Ian Gorham's outpouring that "We should focus on what we can achieve for the client, not what makes it easy for ourselves" seem not a litle hypocritical. See Justin Modray's comment on it on Fundweb, http://www.fundweb.co.uk/blogs/justin-modray-hargreaves-lansdown-in-a-spin/1069852.article

Porcupine

I was amused to listen to a discussion on buying annuities on R4 Moneybox the other week. One of the usual folks that HL wheel out (Tom or Mark) was defending the 3% fee of their annuity supermarket on the grounds that it's reassuringly expensive ('phones staffed by graduates') when the other guest pointed out personal advice from an IFA would only charge 1.5%.

To me it's an additional point in a fund's favour if the HL comment box says 'we can't be bothered to write a comment on this fund' as I then know HL haven't been meddling with it.

sabretoothtigger

This all highlights why advice is biased to favour self interest but isnt it supposed to be totally obvious now with RDR all the fees are stated or is this yet to set

Totton

Rollinghome wrote: »

... Another way would have been the Troy Trojan wheeze. HL apparently didn't rate that fund much either as long as investors could buy the O class at just 1.00% AMC. So Troy obligingly closed the O class to new investors who then had to buy the I class at 1.5% AMC. That did the trick, straight into Mr Dampier's Wealth 150.

Not sure that this is correct. HL afaik have only ever offered the 'I' class of Troy Trojan, it had nothing to do with the soft-closure by Troy but why spoil a good story :-)

dunstonh

I was amused to listen to a discussion on buying annuities on R4 Moneybox the other week. One of the usual folks that HL wheel out (Tom or Mark) was defending the 3% fee of their annuity supermarket on the grounds that it's reassuringly expensive ('phones staffed by graduates') when the other guest pointed out personal advice from an IFA would only charge 1.5%.

Not only that, even where an IFA charges more, the IFA can come in with a higher rate. I saw someone a few months back who got a quote from HL on commission basis and me on fee basis. My fee was £300 more than their commission. Yet the annuity rate I obtained was 10% higher than HL. Other posters that have posted in the pension forum have said much the same. Their local IFA beats the online providers in most cases.

sabretoothtigger

You missed the magic word 'from'. It's £5.95 if you do 20 deals per month. If you do only one it's £11.95.

double catch. IF I remember right, 20 deals in a month and then next month it is cheaper. So first of all, you got to pay up £240 then next month and that month only you get to deal same price xo deals at.

The international cost could be worse, but Halifax I think do better and 1% forex cost and iweb are cheaper still for regular buyers in New york or wherever

Rollinghome

Totton wrote: »

Not sure that this is correct. HL afaik have only ever offered the 'I' class of Troy Trojan, it had nothing to do with the soft-closure by Troy but why spoil a good story :-)

That's partially correct, HL have only ever offered the higher priced I class. The point being made was that HL declined to include the Trojan fund in their Wealth 150 list until Troy obligingly stopped offering the Trojan O class direct through CF at a lower charge than the I class being sold by HL.

It wasn't really a soft closure as such which is normally used to discourage the inflow of further funds. In fact the opposite happened.

The fund is still available to new investors but only by using the more expensive I class offered by HL and to maximise sales the fund was then included in the Wealth 150 and frequently promoted in their advertising newsletter.

There is currently a banner on their website promoting it as their "Fund In Focus". That isn't the normal pattern of a soft closed fund trying to discourage new investment.

Which suggests that despite the spin in his recent article, Gorham has never been interested in driving down the charges on funds but only in driving up their own margins.

Gaaraz

Porcupine wrote: »

You missed the magic word 'from'. It's £5.95 if you do 20 deals per month. If you do only one it's £11.95.

Note that's an investment trust. There's also an Aberdeen Global Asian Smaller Companies which is an open-ended fund - there's no deal fee, but I don't know how the funds themselves compare.

Thank you! It's a bit of a headache calculating the fees and knowing which fund is best isn't it? I'm tempted to only put a smallish amount in (£1k?) so figure the Aberdeen Global Asian Smaller Companies fund could be a better option.

koru

Rollinghome wrote: »

... Troy obligingly stopped offering the Trojan O class direct through CF at a lower charge than the I class being sold by HL.

...The fund is still available to new investors but only by using the more expensive I class offered by HL and to maximise sales the fund was then included in the Wealth 150 and frequently promoted in their advertising newsletter.

The O class is widely available, eg, from Alliance Trust Savings, Interactive Investor. However, I agree that it is extremely unlikely that this fund would be promoted by HL if the I class did not exist.