Transferring Stocks & Shares ISA

terrypin

Hi, First post.

One of my largest savings, about £30k, is a Standard Life Stocks & Shares ISA (Equity Income Trust). They are about to switch this to another company called Alliance Trust Savings. I'm put off by the annual £75 charges, and the fact that I have no Alliance performance history to assess.

At this page

Hmm - I entered a link here but apparently I'm not allowed to do so on my first post! So maybe if someone could reply then I'll include it in my second post!

I read that
"The deal leaves just five investment trust groups offering no-charge savings schemes into their investment trusts. They are: Aberdeen Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, JPMorgan and Schroders."

First, can anyone comment on the accuracy of that please. My first call was to Baillie Gifford who told me that their ISAs have an annual charge of £32.30 +VAT. So not 'free', which makes me sceptical of that source.

Any comments/observations/opinions or web links that might help me find and assess a new home for my ISA would be much appreciated please.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

kidmugsy

terrypin wrote: »

I read that
"The deal leaves just five investment trust groups offering no-charge savings schemes into their investment trusts. They are: Aberdeen Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, JPMorgan and Schroders."

It's the savings schemes that are zero-charge, not necessarily the ISAs. Personal Assets Trust offers a zero-charge ISA.

Scroll down to p44 and below at
http://www.theaic.co.uk/sites/default/files/statistics/attachment/AICStats31Mar15.pdf

jimjames

I think you're confusing a few things here.

Some investment trusts do have free savings schemes. An ISA isn't an investment trust savings scheme and will invariably attract charges as it costs the manager more to handle due to ISA regulations so the quote is accurate.

An ISA is just a wrapper, you can have many things inside it. Just because the ISA wrapper is moving to another platform doesn't mean the investments move so performance of Alliance may be irrelevant if you are just using them as the platform.

Alliance Trust is a little confusing as they manage their own investment trust as well as running ISA fund/share platform too. It doesn't sound like they are moving your investments into a different fund/trust, just changing the platform used.

You may find HL to be cheaper (it's not often that's said!) as I believe their fees are capped at £45.

terrypin

Thanks both, appreciate the fast replies.

I'll investigate Personal Assets Trust and some of those in that PDF. However, I'm unfamiliar with this whole area so I'm not clear which of those many companies offer equivalent 'platforms' (right term?). I'm looking for a simple transfer, no charges involved. I hadn't realised that performance is not a variable, although that's hard to grasp. It gets no human intervention to speak of? No changes in the mix of stocks held?

Re the absence of charges. I took the statement by citywire at face value

IOW as meaning those companies offered same terms as SL, namely no charges. (Although that did raise the question in my mind as to why, i.e. what's in it for them?)

[Still being treated like a spammer, so my link here was removed again.. How many posts are needed before I become acceptable?]

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

steelbru

Like jimjames says, it looks like you may not fully be understanding things here.

There are 3 "parts" to your investment :-
a) The shares that you own - these are shares in Standard Life Equity Income Trust plc. This is a company ( known as an investment trust ) run by Standard Life Investments that mainly buys shares in other UK companies.
b) ISA - a tax wrapper that lets you hold shares, or funds or cash so that any gains are not liable to tax.
c) The "platform", or "broker", ie the company, that manages the day to day running of your investment, eg buys or sells shares for you, deals with HMRC on the tax side, etc. I'm guessing this was Standard Life ?

Note there is a big difference between a) and c), even though they both come under the "Standard Life umbrella"

What I think is happening here is that Standard Life the platform, ie part c), is being changed to Alliance Trust Savings. That is all. You will still hold the same number of shares in Standard Life Equity Income Trust plc, and they will still be in an ISA, you will just need to go to a different website and or phone/write to different people to see how it's performing, buy extra shares, sell shares, etc.

If you don't like the look/charges of Alliance Trust Savings as a platform/broker, then you can transfer your existing shares within the ISA wrapper to any other platform that you think would be better - eg Hargreaves Lansdown as jimjames has suggested, or there are quite a few more, see http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/ to work out which would be best, depending on the size of your investment and how often you trade.

To re-emphasize, you do not need to change which shares you own because of the change of platform.

You can of course change the shares as well if you feel that the Standard Life Equity Income Trust shares are no longer suitable for you, but that is a totally separate decision to the change in platform/broker that you have been notified about.

Vortigern

terrypin wrote: »

Still being treated like a spammer, so my link here was removed again.. How many posts are needed before I become acceptable?

Apparently it's a closely guarded secret number between 9 and 11.

You could break up the URL if you wish, like www. bbc.co.uk

jimjames

terrypin wrote: »

I hadn't realised that performance is not a variable, although that's hard to grasp. It gets no human intervention to speak of? No changes in the mix of stocks held?

Performance is of course a variable if you are comparing different investments.

If you are comparing the same investment held on different platforms then performance will not be the variable but charges or service would be.

terrypin

Thanks steelbru, understood. I was actually only focusing on the charges comparison: zero for SL and £75/annum for ATS.

I don't want to change the mix of shares, so presumably the only factor to consider is the charge?

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

terrypin

Thanks jimjames. Sorry to be slow to get this! But the Standard Life Equity Income Trust PLC is managed (currently by one Thomas Moore **), which is why I'm surprised there have been no management charges by SL, and that there are other companies who also apply none.

** According to a web page I've just read, but I'm not allowed to provide a helpful link here.

steelbru

Price is a major consideration for most people, but also how easy is their website to use, how helpful are the customer service people if you need to phone them with a query, etc, etc.
Hargreaves Lansdown are not always the cheapest ( depends on how much you have invested and how often you plan to buy/sell ) but most agree they have a very user-friendly website and good customer service. Your choice !

As far as your other post to jimjames - you're getting confused between the trust management charges and platform charges.
There is a 0.65% trust management charge per year - you won't actually have to physically pay that, they take it out of the trust and is automatically reflected in the share price. Details here http://uk.standardlifeinvestments.com/IT_Equity_Income/getLatest.pdf
That stays the same for whichever platform you are on, and pays the salary of Thomas Moore and his team !

However, the platform charge for Standard Life is/was zero, and would be £75 for ATS. HL would be £45, others will vary, check the comparison link in my previous post.

terrypin

Thanks steelbru, I finally understand that distinction!

A couple of years ago I transferred my other S&S ISAs into HL's Vantage scheme, to make things 'tidier'. Can't remember why I made SL the exception. Maybe because it was the largest. Do you think I'd get any economy of scale by transferring this package (still called Standard Life Equity Income Trust PLC?) from ATS?