Portfolio+ service from Hargreaves Lansdown

TcpnT

Ok I concede. The ones that I have looked at and used have not included any HL MM funds but I have not looked at every single option and investment value. I fully agree with you though that there are cheaper options available and the OP should do more research. Having said that I believe that it is hard to beat the convenience and ease of use of HL and in addition their platform fees are open to negotiation which can make them more affordable than they initially appear

bioboybill

TcpnT wrote: »

Ok I concede. The ones that I have looked at and used have not included any HL MM funds but I have not looked at every single option and investment value. I fully agree with you though that there are cheaper options available and the OP should do more research. Having said that I believe that it is hard to beat the convenience and ease of use of HL and in addition their platform fees are open to negotiation which can make them more affordable than they initially appear

How do you negotiate lower fees?

zagfles

OldMusicGuy wrote: »

Actually, your post is factually incorrect. The regular income option always seems to recommend the HL Multi-manager income and growth trust as one of the funds. If you enter more than 100,000, the conservative option also includes this HL Multi-manager fund.

So my post was not factually incorrect, yours was But the Master portfolio doesn't recommend the HL multi-manager funds much and has a more diverse selection of funds, so it is fair to say it gives a broad selection of funds, not just HL ones.

However, the charges for these funds would still be higher than something like the VLS funds so I would still suggest that the OP to do a bit of reading first before pressing the button.

Not if you compare like with like, VLS are trackers, if you use their Tracker Portfolio the charges are generally lower than VLS funds.

OldMusicGuy

zagfles wrote: »

Not if you compare like with like, VLS are trackers, if you use their Tracker Portfolio the charges are generally lower than VLS funds.

Didn't know that, thanks. Just found the part of the HL website that has this. If the OP is interested, here's the link: http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/index-tracker-funds/tracker-portfolios

OldMusicGuy

TcpnT wrote: »

Ok I concede. The ones that I have looked at and used have not included any HL MM funds but I have not looked at every single option and investment value. I fully agree with you though that there are cheaper options available and the OP should do more research. Having said that I believe that it is hard to beat the convenience and ease of use of HL and in addition their platform fees are open to negotiation which can make them more affordable than they initially appear

Don't worry, I did the same as you, it's just that the first two options I checked had the HL Multi-manager fund at the top. It's only when I played with other options after you posted that I saw the HL funds were not suggested.

I agree that the HL is really easy to use and I really like the quality of support. I would also be interested to find out how to negotiate a platform discount. I was enrolled through work, who cut a corporate deal with HL but the platform fees we pay are the same as standard.

zagfles

See this thread for negotiating discounts https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4889890

I got a discount to 0.25%. Though that was a few years ago, I think it's harder these days but worth a try. You probably need to say you'll transfer out.

Yanling

Hi, A big thank for you all who take your time and help me, it is very much appreciated.
I am Chinese, and English is not that good either, I need to catch up the time to invest a SIPP before this finance year, so I can get tax relief.
I would like to invest £10,000 in a portfolio who has better return potential, ready-made funds, as less charge as possible, little or no work by myself.
If you were me, which provider and portfolio would you like to go with?
Cheers!

Yanling

Hi sorry to bother you. I searched online and there are a few Vanguard LifeStrategy websites. I was wondering if you could possibly send Vanguard LifeStrategy funds website link which have lower costs and automatically rebalance.
Thank you so very much

OldMusicGuy

This website shows you the different Vanguard LifeStrategy funds and you can click on the "Detailed" button to see their performance over the last 5 years: https://www.vanguardinvestor.co.uk/what-we-offer/life-strategy-products. The Vanguard LifeStrategy funds mostly have a mix of equities and bonds, and they automatically rebalance to maintain that mix within the fund.

However, if you want to invest in the funds as part of a pension, you will need to do that through a pension wrapper like a SIPP. So you have to sign up to a SIPP provider that will give you pension platform that you can use to make investments in funds like the VLS ones. You pay an amount into a SIPP and you use the SIPP provider's website to buy the funds in any way you want. So the HL Master Portfolio and Portfolio + offerings are an automated way of spreading money that you put in an HL SIPP across various funds. Many of us on here choose to make our own allocation decisions.

So the costs of holding a fund like Vanguard LifeStrategy in a SIPP will generally have two components - the SIPP provider platform cost and the fund costs. For HL, they charge .45% platform fee on portfolios up to £250K (it goes down above that) and if you look at each fund on the HL site, you can see what the fund fees are, for example: http://www.hl.co.uk/funds/fund-discounts,-prices--and--factsheets/search-results/v/vanguard-lifestrategy-40-equity-accumulation.

So to invest in the VLS funds on the HL platform you will be paying costs of .67% on a pot of up to £250,000.

The costs for different SIPP providers varies, you can find the HL ones here: http://www.hl.co.uk/pensions/sipp/charges-and-interest-rates. Others may be cheaper, HL has a reputation for being more on the expensive side but the choice of investments is wide, the website excellent and customer service is good.

There are quite a lot of threads on this forum about different SIPP providers. There's a basic guide to SIPPs here if you need it: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/cheap-sipps

Joey_Soap

zagfles wrote: »

See this thread for negotiating discounts https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4889890

I got a discount to 0.25%. Though that was a few years ago, I think it's harder these days but worth a try. You probably need to say you'll transfer out.

Indeed, I tried about 18 months ago. At the time there was quite a few people on forums saying they got a discount from HL. I guess a lot of people then asked for the same thing, including me. The response was a flat "no". It was accompanied by a very patronising standard format letter telling me what wonderful value they were etc... As a result, I moved four ISA/SIPP accounts away from them. On just one account I was paying close to GBP 120 a month for almost nothing in return. I am happy to say that the account has since grown by 60% since I left HL. I would have been paying them > GBP 190 a month on just that one account. I'm very happy that I now pay them exactly nothing. And that is nothing on all four accounts.