HL should I be moving

nrsql

I have an is a with hl, about 20 funds, 75k. Biggest is an m&g with 19k. A few are down around 1k. Have 3 HSBC trackers. Paying in £200 per month to 2 funds. Also have a couple of hundred in BP and GSK.
Am I going to be hit by large charges from this and should think about moving? I do things with III and fidelity and could move to either.

I know I should take some time to find out myself but am abroad at the moment and would appreciate any comments.

At some point I'll be reviewing all this but can't see it happening soon.

Rollinghome

Almost certainly yes, especially after looking into the effect of all their new stealth charges. Paying two or three times what you could elsewhere might not look such a big deal now when returns have been as good as they have over the last few years but will do when returns are back to single digits or negative and still more so over the long term. Important too to minimise the whacking charges HL will want to extract for moving.

Deciding where will depend on your investments and preferences but one the most useful tools out there is SnowMan's brilliant spreadsheet downloadable from https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxA6Przq6KI1YkRWZGFGZkZrRVU/edit?pli=1 Hours of fun.

Glen_Clark

Slightly off topic but do you really need 20 funds?
All that complication and extra charges doesn't protect you from a general fall in stock markets.
You can get plenty of diversity with just one.
I know a guy who has all his £500k portfolio in one Investment Trust (FRCL)
He has probably done better than most of us on here.:o

block10

Other providers will need to be significantly better value to offset HL's significant transfer fees.

Rollinghome

block10 wrote: »

Other providers will need to be significantly better value to offset HL's significant transfer fees.

Depends how it's done.

Move them all into a single fund, such as a balanced or suitable tracker, transfer and unpack at the other end and it could be done for £30. That's 0.04% on £75k which would be recovered in a few months even if you only moved to the next most expensive. Smaller sums might be better moved as cash.

Even if you ignore all HL's stealth fees to push charges above their headline rate, paying 0.25% elsewhere would save £150 a year.

After May though HL will be putting more barbed-wire at the windows with even higher exit fees, including charges for moving cash and closing each sub-account, to lock clients in.

masonic

block10 wrote: »

Other providers will need to be significantly better value to offset HL's significant transfer fees.

Some also offer joining incentives that will offset most of the costs of transferring out.

grey_gym_sock

Rollinghome wrote: »

Almost certainly yes

i disagree. on the information given, OP is more likely to be slightly better off with HL than before. but could definitely cut costs further more by moving to another platform.

on funds other than trackers, HL are slightly reducing their margin.

on those HSBC trackers, HL's new charges will be higher for holdings over £5333, lower for holdings under that amount. (though they will also have some cheaper trackers, which you could gain a bit by switching to.) so it depends how big OP's tracker holdings are.

there's no change to charges for holding individual shares.

there is a new charge of £24 per year if you haven't opted for paperless statements. so opting for paperless would be a quick way to avoid that price hike.

there may be ways to reduce costs by switching some of your funds to different fund classes, etc. this would need further investigation when the new fund prices are revealed on 1 march.

or save more money by moving platforms.

Rollinghome

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

i disagree. on the information given, OP is more likely to be slightly better off with HL than before. but could definitely cut costs further more by moving to another platform.

Perhaps you know better than I do the exact details of his investments but without those details I wouldn't be in a position to judge whether he will be better or worse of than before.

Nor do I know how he'll be hit by all the new charges: the new charge for sending statements; for charging investment trusts separately rather than as shares, new charges for corporate actions, new charges for reinvestment of income, another new charge for selling investments to meet those charges etc. For some people the £30 per fund up to £500 they'll charge for a probate valuation will be an important consideration.

Some new charges may be avoidable with a little ingenuity or inconvenience, some will not.

But then I don't think that whether his costs for using HL be will as exorbitant as before or less so was the question. The title was "HL - should I be moving" and I agree with you that he could definitely cut costs by moving, in my view by a considerable sum and not have the worry of arranging his affairs in ways to avoid all those new charges.

Paying what Danny Cox boasted for the benefit of shareholders would be "Waitrose-style" prices and still have all those additional charges, limitations and inconveniences doesn't strike me as being very attractive.

grey_gym_sock

fair comment. though i think most ppl like to know whether the changes will make them better or worse off, as well as whether they can save by moving.

i was using a bit of guess work. the OP didn't mention holding investment trusts (which could make a difference), and only 2 individual shares (so is unlikely to pay out often for corporate actions).

the probate valuation charge is an interesting 1. does it always need to be paid, or are your executors free to come up with their own valuation (e.g. based on the holdings in the most recent statement - if they haven't been changed - and the prices in the FT)?

nrsql

Thanks for the replies and sorry I haven't got back earlier.
Will probably look to moving from h&l.
Will use another platform for next years isa then look to transferring across later.

nrsql

Thanks everyone.
Gone to iii. was very simple to open the account and the transfer form was quick to fill in.
Have also sent the complaint message to h&l about transfer charges.