Do these charges seem 'reasonable'

fjh

Just reviewing annual statement and these are the charges/fee's.
Welcome thoughts if these look 'reasonable'

HOLDING % charged
BMO MM Navigator Cautious C Inc 1.63%
Jupiter Merlin Income I Acc 1.47%
Prudential Prufund Cau Fd SeriesE Pen 0.75%
Prudential Prufund Growth Fund Series E 0.89%
Quilter Investors Cirilium Balanced R 1.24%
Quilter Investors Cirilium Cnsrv R 1.09%
Threadneedle Managed Eq and Bond Z Acc 0.75%
Vanguard LifeStrategy 40% Equity A Acc 0.22%
IFA Fee 0.50%
Platform Fee 0.275%
Total as % of holdings 1.5%

zagfles

No, they look completely ridiculous, especially the first 2 funds which seem to be "funds of funds" hence the high charge, plus an IFA fee on top! Why pay an IFA to choose the funds for them to choose funds which invest in other funds? Far too many layers of charges!

[Deleted User]

Too high. Anything over 1% seems unreasonable when a fraction of 1% is easily achievable. Besides, this looks like a hotchpotch.

tacpot12

I pay an average of 0.62% in fees for the funds, investment trusts and ETFs in my SIPP portfolio. I have two funds where I am happy to pay over 1% in fees and that is because they are specialist funds where I think active management is beneficial, and the specialised asset class needs special knowledge.

You need to consider whether you feel the fees are justified. Are there alternative funds that would provide the same investment potential and risks but with lower charged?

Prism

If you remove the IFA fee for a second then an average of 1% including platform fee isn't too bad (I pay about 1.15%). With the IFA its getting a little more pricey. My main concern would be the performance of those fund. For the cost they had better do well or else you might as well go with cheaper passive funds.

arnoldy

Quite a few 'fund of funds' including the first two and at least the Vanguard offering. So layered charges. (Layer upon Layer of charges). And not forgetting all of your quoted costs don't include a single dealing charge for any of the layers. Fund management is a highly profitable industry and these charges do support that fact. It's one of the reasons why HL are so keen to develop their own fund management industry. If your portfolio is big enough consider with part of your wealth only holding the underlying investments (eg equities) directly.

dunstonh

IFA Fee 0.50%

Are you sure its an IFA?

The Cirrilium funds are used by FAs belonging to the Intrinsic network. Intrinsic used to be an IFA network but it has moved most of its IFAs to FA status and they use their in-house approved panel. They are pressuring the few remaining ones to move to FA but if they are using Cirrilium, then they are pretty much FAs rather than IFAs.

fjh

100% IFA
First year I have asked lots of questions but now looking to have just annual review for next 2/3 years before drawdown - so will ask IFA charges for ‘pay as I use’.
The charges of over 1% on some of the holdings is what I am seeking thoughts on.
I have calculated total fees over past year to be 1.5% of value of portfolio - the highest charge is for worst performers 🤒

[Deleted User]

Charges are only part of your problem. Definitely a problem but there is more. They bought you the same shares under different wrappers. I am too lazy to look up all these funds but looks like they are mixing multiasset funds with different bond proportions. This thing is designed to look complicated but I’d love to ask IFA “!!!!!! were you trying to achieve here”?

beamyup

The IFA (if they are "I") is at a low price of 0.5%. If you need an IFA - that's a good price.

The platform fee MIGHT be a bit high, depending on your total holdings (which you did not share with us).

Why do you have those high cost funds? Ask your IFA? Did your IFA ever explain? Did you have a hand in selection?

These funds seems quite low risk (maybe 60% bonds on average) , which means lower but more stable returns (in theory). The relative impact of these high charges to your income will be high (higher than if you had a high risk high return portfolio with the same charges)

dunstonh

100% IFA

Are they an appointed representative of Intrinsic? (check the bottom of their letterhead amongst other places). That selection screams Instrinsic rep. I can't see why a directly authorised IFA going near Cirilium.

Adviser charge at 0.5% is fine. Platform charge is ballpark (although it would depend on the amount invested).