Shares + ISA investment company

sanch3z_77

I have shares currently with IIInvestor (shares and shares ISA) however they charge a pretty hefty management fee which doesn't appeal as my portfolio is now built and running...

Originally I was with Hoodless Brennam who only charged a trading fee however they and subsequent companies keep selling out and hiking up their prices... each company says i'm free to leave but I have no idea of where to go and how to do this?

Over the years it's costs me stacks for something I didn't originally sign-up for so it's come to a point where I want to move my holdings. I'm happy to pay a higher trading fee (will only need occasionally, mostly on selling) and a commission on diveden reinvestment is understandably acceptable.

Any help would be appreciated.

bowlhead99

X-o.co.uk have a cheap ISA without ongoing account maintenance fees and low trading costs (assuming you only want UK stock market and not foreign markets or open ended funds).

Youinvest or IWeb have a fuller-featured service - though the former have a 0.25% a year fee on your asset values payable quarterly (though it caps off at £7.50 a quarter so not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things if you have a large balance).

If you search for broker comparisons or platform comparisons there is plenty of discussion and links to comparison tools online.

dunstonh

Originally I was with Hoodless Brennam who only charged a trading fee however they and subsequent companies keep selling out and hiking up their prices... each company says i'm free to leave but I have no idea of where to go and how to do this?

The small firms offering cheap pricing are doing so to buy market share. This is either to build enough assets under management to become profitable or to attract a buyer they can sell out to. It is a model that has been in place for nearly 20 years with platforms & brokerage.

So, if you keep picking small, cheap players you are going to keep going through this process. Even then you are not guaranteed stability. The country's first platform was bought by another. And one of the largest is about to demerge from its parent company and rebrand and move platform software. Change is always a possibility but you can reduce the frequency and likelihood of change.

I'm happy to pay a higher trading fee (will only need occasionally, mostly on selling) and a commission on diveden reinvestment is understandably acceptable.

Have you considered using assets that avoid those types of charges, such as UT/OEICS?

lozzy1965

iWeb is £25 to join and free to run - apart from £5 dealing costs. Fine for my needs, but depends what you want.

sanch3z_77

My shares are a mix of FTSE AIM and LSE... does that pose a problem?

Saying the Model is tried and tested makes sense as it seems to happen every couple of years...

Basically what happened is I had a unit trust that for years under performed so I decided to cash it in and build my own portfolio. I did this and it's ticking along nicely, I got TW and Barratts when they were close to the edge 8 years ago, thankfully they are doing well now but these are things I want to hold onto for many years as they continue to give decent divedens.

I'm not actively trading anymore...

I'm not looking for fancy insights, just a cheap reliable service my holdings are around £25k so not massive

sanch3z_77

dunstonh wrote: »

Have you considered using assets that avoid those types of charges, such as UT/OEICS?

I came from UT, historically they under performed and was sick of it so in the end I took back control. In half the time I had my UT my holdings have tripled, my UT were stagnant for many years... Now I just want somewhere for my fund to sit and tick over... don't really have the time necessary to keep on trading and would rather diversify.

cloud_dog

If it is non-open ended funds, i.e. not OIECS, then have a look at X-O (jarvis), iWeb, Halifax (iWeb use Halifax platform but different charging structure.), SVS.

But, change is always coming.

StellaN

I just transferred my ISA account from Fidelity (around £100K) to iWeb for the one off fee of £25 and I have a mixture of OEIC's and IT's in this account. Therefore, it is far cheaper than Fidelity and I rarely trade but when I do it is lump sums.

However, for my SIPP I am with Fidelity because I only hold IT's so there is a £45 cap per annum. There are also no drawdown charges or oher fees associated with the Fidelity SIPP. Yet again, I rarely trade and when I do it is a lump sum investment so the £10 charge per trade, although expensive compared to others is OK with me.

dunstonh

I came from UT, historically they under performed and was sick of it so in the end I took back control.

Research indicates that is not the case. Especially since the unbundling of UT/OEICs.

In half the time I had my UT my holdings have tripled, my UT were stagnant for many years..

There are so many things wrong with that sentence. Please tell me that you really are not comparing them on that basis and it was just a typing mistake.

sanch3z_77

dunstonh wrote: »

Research indicates that is not the case. Especially since the unbundling of UT/OEICs.

There are so many things wrong with that sentence. Please tell me that you really are not comparing them on that basis and it was just a typing mistake.

Yes I know they're pretty bold statements and everyone's experience is different but I had my first UT (Japan Growth) @16 (over 25 years ago) as I had nothing to spend £1k on at that age. I then followed it up over years with European smaller companies, Global technology and various other mixes. ALL of them barely returned anything... so 10 years ago I gambled and sold them, buying a spread of individual stocks. All were VERY high risk but I figured only one needed to turn it around and I would be covered. So in my experience yes my individual shares have out performed my previous UT.

I'm now in the situation where I want to park these and perhaps look to compliment it with managed funds but I don't regret my decision for a minute

FYI I bought the following:
TW.L at 4 and 21p per share = now hangs around £2 per share
BDEV.L @ 56p and £1 per share = now hangs between £5 - £7 per share

these two alone have given great returns and decent dividends

dunstonh

Yes I know they're pretty bold statements and everyone's experience is different but I had my first UT (Japan Growth) @16 (over 25 years ago) as I had nothing to spend £1k on at that age. I then followed it up over years with European smaller companies, Global technology and various other mixes. ALL of them barely returned anything... so 10 years ago I gambled and sold them, buying a spread of individual stocks. All were VERY high risk but I figured only one needed to turn it around and I would be covered. So in my experience yes my individual shares have out performed my previous UT.

So, you had investments in Japan during the lost decade. You have investments in Tech during the dot.com crash and you had European smaller companies in a period that was pretty dire holding european smaller companies (there was a period where they very were good for a year or two but then was a bad place to be for a number of years)

So, after all those negative periods, you changed them to something different that has only had positive periods since then. Plus, your UT/OEICS were from the bundled charged days and pre-date unbundling. Since unbundling, the differences between comparable UTs and ITs is typically very small.

There is no like-for-like comparison there at all. It reminds me of someone that once boasted about his investments doing so much better than what he used to have with an adviser. We looked at it and his investments were doing worse than what he had held. a) his older investments were held during negative periods whilst his newer investments were held in positive periods. b) the older investments were doing better in the positive periods and his newer investments would have done worse in the negative periods. The perception was completely wrong because it was comparing two different parts of the cycle and not like for like.

You shouldn't eliminate UT/OEICs on the basis of performance in different periods.