St James Place Pension Fund - Stay or Transfer to a SIPP

SabNys

I was investigating SJP. But I dropped them from my list of possible providers.

Reasons: high charges and underperformance.

I'm still not allowed to post links, so I'll provide some google search text.for two recent articles:

Text for high charges:

professionalAdviser Scrutiny of SJP's fees as investors demand 'simple answers'

Text for underperformance:

ukMoneySite We recently reviewed 32 funds in our St James Place investment fund review and found 68% of the total money invested with St James Place is held in poor performing funds.

---

My pension pot is double yours. I'm going to Interactive Investor at flat-rate annual charge of £196. For your pot, Fidelity will charge £375 (0.3%) pa.

Which? magazine rates II and Fidelity 6th and 7th out of 13. Customer satisfaction = 66% and 60%, respectively.

MPN

Hi Sabnys

Thanks for your input. I knew SJP were on the high side with their charges but its the under performance report you mentioned by UKMoneySite that is more worrying!

I thought my pension investment with SJP had performed well but obviously in view of this report it could have done far better through a good independent IFA!

Thanks for the Interactive Investor advice, a flat fee does seem a much better idea as opposed to a percentage with Fidelity. I only mentioned Fidelity because I have all my ISA's with them so I could have kept my SIPP under one roof so to speak instead of dealing with 2 companies.

MPN

Does anybody know if UKMoneySite is a reliable source for this type of information because they also sell their services as advisers?

dunstonh

MPN wrote: »

Does anybody know if UKMoneySite is a reliable source for this type of information because they also sell their services as advisers?

They are not regulated by the FCA. So, they cant be advisers. It looks like they are a lead generation service to third parties.

MPN

Thanks dunstonh.

Yes, I presume that's they keep emailing me to offer a free no obligation valuation of my current investments and then recommend third parties.

dunstonh

I am usually on guard with these third party introducers. A lot of the scams and dodgy methods are done like this. The introducers say things or do things that the regulated third party cannot. So, the introducer tells you what you have is bad and it needs replacing. They then arrange for someone (usually not telling you that its a different company) to visit you and they then dont have to make out what you have is bad because you have it in your mind already and have told them you want something different. They just have to arrange the "something different". This is how the cape verde property scam worked with pensions (as seen on tv earlier in the year but I have also seen 2 cases locally where people fell for it).

Guidance from our compliance company is not to use any introducers like that (local contacts are fine. Such as mortgage adviser, solicitor or accountant to an IFA). It's the lead generation firms that are a concern. Also, the FCA did introduce professional introducer regulation. So, if a firm is not on the FCA register as an introducer then it puts you on guard (again, you would not expect to see accountants, solicitors and mortgage advisers get that permission but the lead generation firms should).

racey

UKMoneySite provided a free report on my holdings. It said that much of my portfolio is invested in poor or mediocre performing funds. They offered to discuss how it could be improved. I emailed to ask how much this advice would cost but haven't heard back yet.
It's interesting that they are unregulated.

racey

dunstonh wrote: »

I am usually on guard with these third party introducers. A lot of the scams and dodgy methods are done like this. The introducers say things or do things that the regulated third party cannot. So, the introducer tells you what you have is bad and it needs replacing. They then arrange for someone (usually not telling you that its a different company) to visit you and they then dont have to make out what you have is bad because you have it in your mind already and have told them you want something different. They just have to arrange the "something different". This is how the cape verde property scam worked with pensions (as seen on tv earlier in the year but I have also seen 2 cases locally where people fell for it).

Guidance from our compliance company is not to use any introducers like that (local contacts are fine. Such as mortgage adviser, solicitor or accountant to an IFA). It's the lead generation firms that are a concern. Also, the FCA did introduce professional introducer regulation. So, if a firm is not on the FCA register as an introducer then it puts you on guard (again, you would not expect to see accountants, solicitors and mortgage advisers get that permission but the lead generation firms should).

That's exactly what they did with me - telling me my investments are bad and offering to change them. I've since read a load of Trustpilot reviews which all say the same thing - their poor portfolio is now much better.
I'm not an experienced or skilled investor and my portfolio has been set up recently based on advice in The Times. I'm surprised that they have consistently given bad advice.:(

bowlhead99

racey wrote: »

That's exactly what they did with me - telling me my investments are bad and offering to change

But as they are not regulated financial advisors, they are not qualified to tell you that your portfolio is bad, and they do not know what your goals are anyway.

And they have not charged you any money anyway, so what they are telling you (that the portfolio is bad) is not professional advice; you shouldn't believe it on face value, because they are not qualified to say it.

All they can do is introduce you to someone who could review it properly as the next step. And they are not even authorised by the FCA to make introductions, per Dunstonh (I haven't checked the register myself)

So, is it any wonder they tell you your portfolio is bad, when they only make money by telling people their portfolios are bad and referring them on to someone that gives them a backhander after charging you for a review?

I've since read a load of Trustpilot reviews which all say the same thing - their poor portfolio is now much better

I wouldn't put much stock in favourable trustpilot reviews because I could easily leave a favourable review without having ever used the service, and it wouldn't get taken down. The reviews could have been written by friends and family of the company concerned.

I have no doubt that some people have poor portfolios that could benefit from a professional review from a truly independent adviser if they have never sought a professional review before. However, many people are naive in such matters and will be happy to believe their portfolios have been improved, regardless of the quality end up with, because they are not good at evaluating portfolios themselves which is the whole reason they were happy to pay for a review.

So even if the reviews are genuine they may be misguided. Any new portfolio can appear to perform very well if the markets are generally positive, which they broadly have been for most asset classes for the last six or seven years. Are people waiting ten years to leave a review after they have seen the results of a whole economic cycle? I suspect not.

I'm not an experienced or skilled investor and my portfolio has been set up recently based on advice in The Times. I'm surprised that they have concisely given bad advice.:(

The Times is a newspaper you can buy for a pound. Or less if you go digital. They don't provide investment advice, but opinion. If you wanted high quality investment advice you would see an independent unbiased professional and pay actual money.

dunstonh

UKMoneySite provided a free report on my holdings. It said that much of my portfolio is invested in poor or mediocre performing funds. They offered to discuss how it could be improved.

Of course they did. I wonder why.

It's interesting that they are unregulated.

Most scams and dodgy activity comes from the unregulated side.

The typical scam is that they cold call you (genuine regulated firms dont cold call). Tell you that they will do a free pension review (there is no such thing as free pension review). They often use a courier to pick up info/get authority letter. They then find out about the pension and then proceed to tell you how bad it is whether it is or not. This is ususally followed up by how much better they can do things.

Unregulated firms are not allowed to do this. They are acting unlawfully.

I have come across a number of people that have been caught out with these cold call scams using unregulated cold callers. They have all ended badly or were luckily caught in time to prevent them from ending badly. A few of them have resulted in total loss of their money.

One of the "free reviews" told a young inexperienced investor that his Aviva pension in a multi-asset fund was losing money. That fund hadn't been losing money so we looked into it more and it turned out that the projections issued by Aviva included a low rate, mid rate and high rate example using defined rates, as required by the regulator. The low rate showed a negative figure. That is quite normal. It is just an example after all. However, the "free review" had taken that figure and used it to say that is what the pension was on track for and was losing money. In reality, the returns were running at around +6% p.a.

unregulated firms tell lies because they can. Some do go on to sell you to a regulated firm who wont know the lies being told (although some dodgy ones may well be in cahoots - I had one recently where the FOS have just upheld a case because they found the unregulated cold caller and regulated firm were working together). Others will use unregulated investmetns like Cape Verde property, biofuels or forestry. All, inevitably, end up failing.

I've since read a load of Trustpilot reviews which all say the same thing - their poor portfolio is now much better.

Trustpilot is not reliable. It is easily manipulated with fake reviews.

Plus, most of the failed investors tend to find out 3-4 years later. A trustpilot report saying they got their glossy information and the pension was transferred quickly and all is well is only telling you what has immediately happened. That person wont find out it has gone down the pan until a number of years later.

I'm not an experienced or skilled investor and my portfolio has been set up recently based on advice in The Times.

The Times does not give advice. It gives journalistic opinion. I would be wary. Journalists generally have a poor record on investments. Often you see the financial reporting is full of misinformation or misunderstanding or the article is written by an advertiser to look like an article or is sponsored by an advertiser to effectively promote their product, platform or fund.