Whats Hargreaves lansdown's management performance like?

happyhero

Hi I have been messing around buying and selling shares & funds for several years now and do ok, I like to try and manage 10% growth which I have sometimes managed well over and sometimes well under. Hargreaves lansdown keeps sending me emails to say let them manage it but never give any past performance figures to see how they do and in my experience looking at other companies, although the people doing the management are supposed to be professionals I find sometimes it seems I would have done better myself when they talk about figures like 5%.

So basically so far I have not been impressed by the professionals results but I cant see any for Hargreaves Lansdown (who I know a good and reputable company) and of course it all gets a bit messsy if you ask as they then ask you whats your attitude to risk. I would prefer to see some past results for say, a careful portfolio a risky portfolio and one in the middle and at least then I could make some judgement on them. Yes I know the old saying that past performance doesnt guarantee future performance but it does help to judge a little.

So the best answer I could get on here is from someone who has been with them and let them manage their portfolio for them and so can hopefully tell me the % gain they achieved per year and how many years they have achieved these gains.

I look after my parents investments too now so it would make a difference changing to them if their figures are impressive etc.

HL's charge is £495+VAT and my parents and I each have possible £50k+ amounts that could potentially be put under their management, hence its important to us to get this right.

I don't want to just phone them and get the sales pitch to push me into it, I would rather get recommendations from customers and some results.

I realsie I probably wont be able to get those answers on here but I thought it worth a try anyway.

Any info help appreciated.

dunstonh

although the people doing the management are supposed to be professionals I find sometimes it seems I would have done better myself when they talk about figures like 5%.

Is the volatility risk rating of your portfolio comparable to the one that got 5%?

So the best answer I could get on here is from someone who has been with them and let them manage their portfolio for them and so can hopefully tell me the % gain they achieved per year and how many years they have achieved these gains.

Like all adviser built portfolios, they will be on a sliding scale and any comparison needs to be done on a like-for-like basis.

I look after my parents investments too now so it would make a difference changing to them if their figures are impressive etc.

If you have been averaging 10% a year, including credit crunch period then that would indicate a risk level which is high. Are your parents matching your risk profile or are you building a portfolio that matches their risk profile?

Onawingandaprayer

Can't give you a year-on-year analysis, but my wife and I both have portfolios with them, in the conservative to medium risk category. Over a 5* year period mine is showing a 66% increase and hers 64%.

Am happy with the service and with these figures - not cheap, but you get what you pay for and H-L suit us fine.

*Actually, just checked and as it was Jan 2010, for the sake of accuracy, it's six years.

Linton

Onawingandaprayer wrote: »

Can't give you a year-on-year analysis, but my wife and I both have portfolios with them, in the conservative to medium risk category. Over a 5 year period mine is showing a 66% increase and hers 64%.

Am happy with the service and with these figures - not cheap, but you get what you pay for and H-L suit us fine.

That is a very good achievement as the past 5 years have been pretty mediocre. Trustnet tells me that out of the 2341 funds that have been around for the past 5 years only 270 did better than 66%: roughly 12%. These included from a quick scan a high % of Small Company and US funds.

Care to share the list of funds H-L chose for you?

bigadaj

Hl operate as both advisers and fund managers and presumably frequently both.

Just looked on trustnet and their multi manager income and growth fund has hit 65% for five years and beaten the benchmark over several periods.

These funds will be expensive as you are paying additional charges for management, but hl have that reputation anyway, and it may be reassuring for some.

OP - I think you need to define your requirements better, presumably the purpose of your parents investment will be different to your own.

It would also be interesting To get details of of your investment history, what have you invested in and actual return numbers, I track mine in trustnet and so have a good steer on returns and also what and where I am invested, so matching returns with risk or at least volatility, would be worth you doing the same.

Also if you really are getting decent returns diying then why pay more for an adviser or managed service, as above my only concern with what you posted is that you might be managing your own and your parents investments in a Similar manner when your requirements may well differ.

george4064

There are 5 different ways of investing through HL;

1. Going DIY, investing in the funds/ITs/shares you choose. Cheapest option, but requires the most maintenance/monitoring.

2. HL Multi-Manager funds. 2nd cheapest option, requires little maintenance (requires manual re-balancing by switching when you desire).

3. HL Portfolio +, this will select a pre-determined portfolio for you, a mixture of his Multi-Manager Funds. This costs the same as option 2, but the difference is that it automatically re-balances to the target allocation on a bi-annual basis.

4. Take financial advise from HL, which is what I think you are referring to in the OP's post. I'm 99% sure the HL advisers will advise for you to invest in the HL Multi-Manager funds. This is by far the most expensive option.

5. Use HL's portfolio management service (essentially discretionary management), this is where a HL adviser will take control of your portfolio, and place instructions on your behalf. This is the most expensive option.

bigadaj

....and there are of course huge numbers of options to invest without using Hargreaves lansdown, which will generally be cheaper in each alternative than their equivalent.

happyhero

dunstonh wrote: »

Is the volatility risk rating of your portfolio comparable to the one that got 5%?

They were just figures that were offered out from various companies and I would suspect these are generally non risky investments on the whole.



Like all adviser built portfolios, they will be on a sliding scale and any comparison needs to be done on a like-for-like basis.

I think like for like in this area is difficult to find so making decent comparisons awkward. If I went with something risky with HL I would feel much less worried on the possible outcome than I would with some of the lesser known companies but then I have been with HL for quite a while now and have built up a lot of confidence in their system and methods etc so maybe I am biased towards them.

If you have been averaging 10% a year, including credit crunch period then that would indicate a risk level which is high. Are your parents matching your risk profile or are you building a portfolio that matches their risk profile?

When I started looking after their portfolios several years back I tried to be very carefull with anything I did as would be sensible for the more elderly who want security/safety but my attitude to risk was much greater. I am drawn to the higher risk.... within reason... to attempt to achieve bigger gains and over time I have found a level of risk I am happy with. I think anyone looking in at my investing from the outside would say I play on the risky side.

But over the years my parents told me that their investments with HL (which are all done within the ISA wrapper), will become my inheritence one day. On top of this they stopped taking any profit on leaving it on the account and told me to take it as income. Now they receive a few dividends but as the pot grows on each of the accounts this has now become my income. I retired myself from my job as electrician as I dveloped a bad back and realised I would be in a bad state if I carried on much longer, so these investments are now my income, hence my reason to be more interested than normal in them doing well as their progress decides how well I live each year. At the moment I am finding it a little tough.

So in answer to my parents risk, as the realisation set in that these investments were to become my inheritence one day and I should take income from them in the mean time, I have slowly changed my parents portfolios so that they now match the trading I do in my own.

Whilst things grow I feel great as pot begins to build up, I actually want to create a big enough pot as a safey net to have a years income sitting there for a potential bad year but so far have not managed a big enough pot and have watched it get very low as I draw income waiting for the next bull run or at least some gains come in. At the moment it is proving hard to achieve any growth.

To help this I an now slowly letting all 3 portfolio grow rather than take it all as profits, as obviously it makes sense, 10% of a bigger amount brings in a bigger possible income.

By the way I should mention that I am not totally selfish in this investing so I do take some care with their portfolios as I do still treat it as their money which it is, in case they should suddenly need some or all of it, and we have talked about this so the last thing I would want is to totally destroy them with some risky trading.

happyhero

Onawingandaprayer wrote: »

Can't give you a year-on-year analysis, but my wife and I both have portfolios with them, in the conservative to medium risk category. Over a 5* year period mine is showing a 66% increase and hers 64%.

Am happy with the service and with these figures - not cheap, but you get what you pay for and H-L suit us fine.

*Actually, just checked and as it was Jan 2010, for the sake of accuracy, it's six years.

This sounds quite good to me, not that I am any kind of expert but if my maths are correct I just worked out that at 10% growth every year and without touching any of it I would only manage about 61% after 5 years, I'm sure someone on here will correct me if I am wrong, also I have not allowed for any dividends, just pure growth.

When it comes to costs, I dont care too much if after all deductions they can do better than 10% say per year and on top of that take away the headache of picking the investments, I get fed up with that sometimes when it seems I cannot make profit anywhere with funds or shares, it would be lovely to just hand it all over to somebody else to sort out and if they can do a lot better well great, I am happy to let them do it.