Hargreaves Lansdown unveils new Wealth 150+ list

Rollinghome

HL have revealed their new Wealth 150+ list here. Those are the funds they say they've negotiated lower charges on though with 27 funds listed out of the 2500+ funds on offer it might be better called the Wealth 27+.

For some funds there's a new class and for others the discount will be paid as a "loyalty bonus" - I assume those are the ones with a letter "i" beside them though it doesn't seem to say. (Edit: Nope, seems to be the other way around.) The average discount on the 27 funds listed is 0.16%.

There's a separate list of "Core trackers". The only FTSE All share tracker listed is the L&G UK Index class C with an OCF of 0.10% which is 0.07% lower than the class I available on Fundsnetwork and Cofunds. There's also the L&G International class C, which tracks the FTSE World ex UK index with an OCF of 0.20% rather than the 0.31% of the class I.

Could help offset their high 0.45% platform plus other fees a smidgeon - provided you restricted yourself to those funds.

The question that's bound to be asked is what is the criteria for including the funds? Will a headline grabbing "discount" do it even if the fund wouldn't otherwise be recommended?

The biggest "loyalty bonus" is for the Aberdeen Latin American Equity fund which is highly volatile and has lost 35% since last March putting it 19% below its launch price. It may or may not do well from there but should HL really be encouraging punters to put their money into such a high-risk investment, rather than a more general EM fund - and would they if it wasn't for the discount? Even with the discount it still isn't cheap with a clean OCF of 0.85%.

Another interesting one is Standard Life UK Smaller Companies. It's already bigger than the Cazenove UK Smaller Cos fund which the managers recently decided to hard close because they thought it was getting too big for a small cos fund to maintain performance. Is the Standard Life fund set to get a whole lot bigger and, if so, is it really one to push at this point?

Quite a few of the links don't work yet so I assume they're still sorting it out.

westy22

Had a quick look through - nothing very inspiring or game-changing there.

Certainly, doesn't justify HL's 'just wait and see what we have for you from 1 March' PR over the last couple of months. Bit of an anti-climax really.

Kavor

HL have also negotiated lower charges on another 30 funds. These 30 funds are from the Wealth 150 list and not the Wealth 150+ list. The full list of 57 discounted funds is available via http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/wealth-150/plus/annual-saving-on-wealth-150-funds

ColdIron

They have also released all (?) of their unbundled versions of funds and some of these are slightly cheaper than the inclusive ones

I think they have broken some of their lists, I can view First State Global Emerging Mkt Leaders Inclusive - Class A via my ISA list as I hold it, but I can't find either the inclusive or unbundled in 'Fund prices & research'

I notice M&G Strategic Corporate Bond has turned backup in the regular wealth 150 list and I'm sure this was dropped a while back to discourage inflows

cepheus

Kavor wrote: »

HL have also negotiated lower charges on another 30 funds. These 30 funds are from the Wealth 150 list and not the Wealth 150+ list. The full list of 57 discounted funds is available via http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/wealth-150/plus/annual-saving-on-wealth-150-funds

So is this a genuine 'lower charge' relative to other providers, or might competitors have also negotiated a reduction?

jimjames

Some interesting numbers in the list. One of my favourite funds was the Lindsell Train UK equity, now down to 0.45% which for a managed fund looks like excellent value. It was never on the W150 list for some reason (it had no track record???) despite the Worldwide version being listed as soon as it was launched.

With the HL platform fee, a total of 0.9% doesn't look bad at all. I have a small ISA left with them and am looking at rebalancing to put the funds that either only HL sell and those with the lowest fees in it with the remainder with Cavendish.

Glen_Clark

Rollinghome wrote: »

HL have revealed their new Wealth 150+ list .

Wealth for who

dunstonh

So is this a genuine 'lower charge' relative to other providers, or might competitors have also negotiated a reduction?

No. The other platforms that have already got some superclean on them have similar discounts on some funds. Its early days and more will come but there is nothing here that makes HL stand out. Some are doing it slightly differently. Skandia, for example, have the Blackrock trackers which are normally 0.2x% TER at 0.1x% e.g. Blackrock Cont Euro Equity is 0.22% on bundled basis but available at 0.12% on unbundled basis with the 0.10% difference rebated. So, the share class is still clean rather than superclean but a rebate is involved.

AXA Elevate have the S class architas funds which are typically 0.20% cheaper than the clean class. e.g. Architas passive moderate A (clean) is 0.65% but the class S is 0.45%. They also have another class that has an even lower TER but has a small initial charge (breakeven is about 6-7 years) which is targeted for very long term holdings.

Once more fund houses/platforms come out with their offerings, you will probably end up finding it is swings and roundabouts and nothing in it between platforms and again, it will be the platform charge itself that makes the difference.

Drp8713

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/b/blackrock-consensus-85-class-i-accumulation

This is cheap now, good multi asset tracker. 0.13% + 0.45% = 0.58% TER

koru

cepheus wrote: »

So is this a genuine 'lower charge' relative to other providers, or might competitors have also negotiated a reduction?

I don't know how representative this is, but they have Troy Trojan O at 0.25% rebate, giving a net AMC of 0.75% (if held within a tax wrapper). I'm not aware of any other place you can currently get this discount, though I imagine other platforms are pressuring Troy to offer the same.

ATS and II both currently give no discount on Trojan O. However, even a 0.25% saving only reduces HL's platform fee to 0.2%, and only on that investment. (For those on discounted platform fees from HL, that could mean the effective platform fee is zero on a fund like Trojan.)

The average discount on those funds that have discounts seems to be about 0.1%, making HL effectively 0.35%, even if you can't get the discounts elsewhere. There are plenty of fund groups that have given them no (or virtually no) discounts, eg, Fidelity, Invesco, Henderson.

It seems like the discounts are usually rebates, not separate classes.

On a quick look, there are some fund groups where the discounts seem to apply to most or all the clean funds of the fund group, not just to W150. eg, Artemis; First State; Schroders; Threadneedle

However, there are several fund groups where the only (or almost all of the) discounted clean funds are the ones in the W150.eg, Neptune, Newton, Old Mutual

koru

Drp8713 wrote: »

http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/b/blackrock-consensus-85-class-i-accumulation

This is cheap now, good multi asset tracker. 0.13% + 0.45% = 0.58% TER

However, if you already have an account with a flat fee platform (so you are already paying the flat platform fee), this fund costs 0.23% TER.

Edit: but watch the bid-offer spread, even on the clean class.