Hargreaves Lansdowne - Is my money safe?

blackbirdxx

Hi, 

I tend to use Hargreaves Lansdowne to look after my money.

I have the following portfolio with them:

+ A stocks and shares ISA

+ A SIPP

+ A Fund and Shares Account 

The Portfolio is managed and called: HL Portfolio+ Balanced Growth.

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Not being very knowledgeable in finance, I was hoping that somebody can explain how safe my investments are if I go over the £85K threshold. Should I be putting money elsewhere?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance. 

dunstonh

The Portfolio is managed and called: HL Portfolio+ Balanced Growth.

Most people DIY because they want to save on charges.  You are paying more than using an IFA.   Any reason why you selected that option?

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

In respect of the underlying assets yes.   However, the administration may suffer and accessibility may cease for a period.

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. 

£85k per fund house on the funds you select.  you have selected one fund, so you get £85k on that.  Although that is largely irrelevant with a fund of funds.

Also £85k at platform level but with platforms, the FSCS compensation would go against the cost of the administrator rather than the assets as the assets will still exist.

<div><br></div><div> I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.</div>

Which is both true and untrue at the same time.   At platform level its correct but at the investments level it is not.

Should I be putting money elsewhere?

Not from an FSCS point of view.  However, from a charges point of view, you can do much better.

Linton

Unlike the situation with the banks, your money is held completely separately from HLs own money.  If HL goes bust your money can't be used to pay its debts.  What would probably happen is that someone else would buy HLs business including the customer base and run things much the same as before except perhaps under a different name.

Possibly there could be a short delay whilst the new management took over but apart from that your money should be safe.

Many people on this forum have sums greatly in excess of £85K invested with HL or a range of other providers.

jamesd

blackbirdxx said:

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Your money is mostly safe because it's kept separate from HL's own money at all times.

However, it's not safe from all risks and no provider is. If one was to become bankrupt the administrators handling the bankruptcy are allowed to apply to court for permission to take their charges from the investors and the court will almost certainly grant that permission because the alternative is much worse. During the administration for up to several years or even as long as a decade you might have no access to your money.

The FSCS cover is 85k per investment house/fund manager that you use. If you used five different fund managers you'd have five times the cover. It doesn't cover investment losses, only things like fraud and bankruptcy. In addition there's 85k of cover for HL that might be sufficient to cover losses due to administration costs.

Linton

jamesd said:

blackbirdxx said:

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Your money is mostly safe because it's kept separate from HL's own money at all times.

However, it's not safe from all risks and no provider is. If one was to become bankrupt the administrators handling the bankruptcy are allowed to apply to court for permission to take their charges from the investors and the court will almost certainly grant that permission because the alternative is much worse. During the administration for up to several years or even as long as a decade you might have no access to your money.

The FSCS cover is 85k per investment house/fund manager that you use. If you used five different fund managers you'd have five times the cover. It doesn't cover investment losses, only things like fraud and bankruptcy. In addition there's 85k of cover for HL that might be sufficient to cover losses due to administration costs.

I think you overstate the risks. It could apply where customer assets were complex, difficult to access or perhaps difficult to identify which could have been the case with SVC, the only platform I know of which did go bust.  SVC was not a typical mainstream investor platform.

For people investing in normal funds or shares on a normal platform that is very unlikely to be a problem. In any case the customer base is a very valuable asset in its own right.

Thrugelmir

Linton said:

jamesd said:

blackbirdxx said:

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Your money is mostly safe because it's kept separate from HL's own money at all times.

However, it's not safe from all risks and no provider is. If one was to become bankrupt the administrators handling the bankruptcy are allowed to apply to court for permission to take their charges from the investors and the court will almost certainly grant that permission because the alternative is much worse. During the administration for up to several years or even as long as a decade you might have no access to your money.

The FSCS cover is 85k per investment house/fund manager that you use. If you used five different fund managers you'd have five times the cover. It doesn't cover investment losses, only things like fraud and bankruptcy. In addition there's 85k of cover for HL that might be sufficient to cover losses due to administration costs.

I think you overstate the risks. It could apply where customer assets were complex, difficult to access or perhaps difficult to identify which could have been the case with SVC, the only platform I know of which did go bust.  SVC was not a typical mainstream investor platform.

For people investing in normal funds or shares on a normal platform that is very unlikely to be a problem. In any case the customer base is a very valuable asset in its own right.

There was Beaufort Securities which got charged by the US authorities for securities fraud and money laundering.

HL is a long established company which has grown over many years to now be a FTSE 100 company. There's no comparison to the cowboy outfits. 

Albermarle

blackbirdxx said:

Hi, 

I tend to use Hargreaves Lansdowne to look after my money.

I have the following portfolio with them:

+ A stocks and shares ISA

+ A SIPP

+ A Fund and Shares Account 

The Portfolio is managed and called: HL Portfolio+ Balanced Growth.

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Not being very knowledgeable in finance, I was hoping that somebody can explain how safe my investments are if I go over the £85K threshold. Should I be putting money elsewhere?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance. 

HL are very profitable and therefore unlikely to have financial problems , partly due to customers like you paying high charges !

jamei305

It's Hargreaves Lansdown not Hargreaves Lansdowne, there's no E on the end.

This is important because if you can't even remember how to spell it, then you could easily end up depositing your cash with scammers who set up a fake website at the erroneous name, although you're lucky in this instance because Hargreaves Lansdown appear to have anticipated this particular mistake and have purchased hargreaveslansdowne.com themsleves.

Thrugelmir

Albermarle said:

blackbirdxx said:

Hi, 

I tend to use Hargreaves Lansdowne to look after my money.

I have the following portfolio with them:

+ A stocks and shares ISA

+ A SIPP

+ A Fund and Shares Account 

The Portfolio is managed and called: HL Portfolio+ Balanced Growth.

My question is, what happens if Hargreaves Lansdowne gets into difficulties? Is my money safe??

You keep hearing that the FSCS will cover up to £85K of investments. I also read an article by WHICH that the FSCS covers a maximum of £85K of investments per person, per platform.

Not being very knowledgeable in finance, I was hoping that somebody can explain how safe my investments are if I go over the £85K threshold. Should I be putting money elsewhere?

Many thanks in advance for any assistance. 

HL are very profitable and therefore unlikely to have financial problems , 

That's a sure way of picking the wrong investments.