Cheapest way to buy Octopus Apollo VCT

fcmisc

What would be the cheapest way to buy the Octopus Apollo VCT?


https://octopusinvestments.com/investor/our-products/venture-capital-trusts/octopus-apollo-vct/


The prior link has fees for Advised (initial only) and Advised (initial and ongoing). What would the fees be if I have had no financial advice?


HL also sells it, but according to their KID the annual charges are 2.84%+0.55%=3.39%!!!:


https://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/venture-capital-trusts#current-offers


What other places should I consider using in this purchase?


Is there anything else I should be aware of?

londoninvestor

With Wealthclub you'll pay 3% on the way in (same as HL), but get 0.25% of the annual trail rebated:
https://www.wealthclub.co.uk/venture-capital-trusts/venture-capital-trust-offers/?fromcf=true

I haven't checked every possible broker - it might be worth asking on Lemon Fool where there's a dedicated board:
https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=25

londoninvestor

btw here's a recent-ish thread on VCTs for good measure:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5986729/why-not-more-discussion-on-vcts

mostwelcome

+1 for Wealth Club, for the reasons londoninvestor said, but also because then you'll hold it directly as shares in your own name (registered with Computershare), there is no ongoing platform fee.

fcmisc wrote: »

Is there anything else I should be aware of?

You mentioned the annual fees, these look high if you're comparing to a unit trust but they are not untypical for a VCT – remember they are investing in unquoted companies so typically have much more involvement both in selecting and then helping manage the investments, typically taking a board seat. There are various underlying fees, the main one being the management fee charged by the manager to the company (the VCT) itself, and of course these are not charged directly to the investor, they come out of your total return per share which is the same for every shareholder regardless of how you obtain the shares. But yes, understandably you want to find the best value place to buy them! Particularly if you don't require financial advice.