WEALTH at work?

MallyGirl

Funny that this thread has popped up again.
Our company pension has been moved to L&G and they invited me to a 'warm up to retirement' webinar. I went along to see what was being said rather than expecting anything I didn't know. I was very disheartened to see mention at the top of the second slide about needing 35 years NI to qualify for the new state pension. I queried this on the chat but it the presenter didn't look at chat till she had finished her script. She then showed that she had no idea as she tried to backtrack but only dug herself deeper. Some of the more general stuff was OK but overall it was very unsatisfactory

dunstonh

  I've been looking at other investment managers in the hope of finding a table of their service charges and performance..... people like Fisher Investments vs Standard Life vs Fidelity vs Vanguard etc.

Those "people" have very different business models and offerings.    One is tied salesforce,  Three are product providers that don't give advice.   One of those offers a restricted platform but is also a fund house.    Two offer whole of market platforms and their own fund house.

With most platforms nowadays being whole of market, that means they offer virtually all the funds available.  So, looking at platform providers for performance is completely pointless (i..e you can have the same fund on the SL platforms that you can have on the Fidelity platforms)

 I can find the odd comparison but these are all US based - are there any UK services comparisons ?  

What are you trying to compare?   i.e. if you work on the basis that all whole of market platforms have the same investment options, then it cannot be performance you are looking for.

Albermarle

Sausages_Folks said:

I'm in the exact same position now and this thread has really made me think twice ... in fact more than twice !  I'd be really interested to know what aliad62 ended up doing. (This is my first post - am not sure how to link back to the previous comments) .     I've been looking at other investment managers in the hope of finding a table of their service charges and performance..... people like Fisher Investments vs Standard Life vs Fidelity vs Vanguard etc.  Has anyone done this or got recommendations ?   I can find the odd comparison but these are all US based - are there any UK services comparisons ?   Thanks

Fisher Investments are a hard sell US based 'wealth manager' bombarding the internet with adverts. Perfectly legal but expensive - similar to St James Place.
Standard Life are an long established UK provider of personal and workplace pensions.
Fidelity and Vanguard ae very large US based asset managers, with a significant UK presence as they operate popular investment platforms. The difference is that on the Vanguard platform you can only buy Vanguard investments, but with Fidelity you can buy Fidelity investments but also many other investments, including Vanguard ones.
Investment performance depends on what you invest in, not which intermediary you choose.

phynix_uk

I think there are some pretty harsh comments on this thread. Nobody likes fees, but these fees don't look excessive in the world of advice. They're obviously more expensive than self-managing but the fact is, most people aren't comfortable with being able to navigate investment decisions let alone something like drawdown.

I have friends with wealth at work and I've looked at their portfolio and sense checked the advice received. They do appear to be independent, it's just the wrapper which is the wealth at work SIPP. They hold a combination of funds and direct equities which they claim are managed daily, if that's true then I'd say they were at least as good as any other IFA.... and probably a country mile ahead of the likes of SJP etc.

It's also hugely unrealistic to expect any adviser to write a completely individual pension report, I've worked for a lot of advice firms in my past and they all had templates. As long as your circumstances are specific and the advice is specific to you I wouldn't worry if the report had elements that were obviously copied.

Pat38493

phynix_uk said:

I think there are some pretty harsh comments on this thread. Nobody likes fees, but these fees don't look excessive in the world of advice. They're obviously more expensive than self-managing but the fact is, most people aren't comfortable with being able to navigate investment decisions let alone something like drawdown.

I have friends with wealth at work and I've looked at their portfolio and sense checked the advice received. They do appear to be independent, it's just the wrapper which is the wealth at work SIPP. They hold a combination of funds and direct equities which they claim are managed daily, if that's true then I'd say they were at least as good as any other IFA.... and probably a country mile ahead of the likes of SJP etc.

It's also hugely unrealistic to expect any adviser to write a completely individual pension report, I've worked for a lot of advice firms in my past and they all had templates. As long as your circumstances are specific and the advice is specific to you I wouldn't worry if the report had elements that were obviously copied.

So do i understand from this that you can be an IFA but still tie your customers into a single platform, as long as the platform is whole of market?

follow on question - if that platform had exit charges you could still be IFA or not?

dunstonh

So do i understand from this that you can be an IFA but still tie your customers into a single platform, as long as the platform is whole of market?

Yes.   However, you have to run ongoing research on platforms at firm level which supports your justification.    You cant just say that I am going to use abc platform for everyone.

Plus, you have to show the individual research for each client is justified for that platform.  

It is worth noting that a fairly large number of adviser firms have been forced to drop their independent status because they failed to do that.         

And just because a platform used by an FA is whole of market does not mean they are using investments from the whole of market.   Many FAs have a central panel controlled by the principal/compliance team.    So, they can only select from that panel.

follow on question - if that platform had exit charges you could still be IFA or not?

exit charges are unusual with IFA products/platforms.    However, there is nothing in the rules regarding products that says there shouldnt be exit charges.    

Albermarle

So do i understand from this that you can be an IFA but still tie your customers into a single platform, as long as the platform is whole of market?

We often tell posters that it is the investments what matter, and what platform they use is a much more minor issue. So I suppose it is the same logic.

Also AIUI, advisors will have their favourite platform(s) that work quickly, and provide all the info they need in the right format, with good customer service, up to date software etc

I guess if I was an advisor ( or working for one ) , I would not be wanting to get to grips with all the different quirks of a dozen different platforms, just from a practical point of view. 

phynix_uk

In this specific case, Wealth at Work are not charging a fee for the SIPP wrapper as they provide their own for free. they do not use a platform as they are the DFM. The contents of the portfolio itself appears whole of market so they appear to have no ties to anyone.

I'd imagine they can justify being independent by conducting research on each case and by searching ALL SIPP wrappers/Platforms available but short of one literally paying them to use their service, their own wrapper will be justifiably the cheapest. Personally, I don't have an issue with this, if the wrapper is essentially cheaper and the contents of the portfolio is whole of market, what's the issue? 

Ultimately, the only real issue here will be if you value the adviser and the service. I would imagine the adviser, like most places is luck of the draw, some will be great and not so great. If you can self-manage, like a lot on here, great, but as I previously stated, a lot, in fact most can't or perhaps shouldn't. 

cfw1994

Interesting defence for W@W.   Looks like they are now more an umbrella company for a bunch of other “wealth management” businesses.

just a reminder from the start of this, where after their first meeting with my relative, they:

”sent a hefty 54-page document 🤪  I've had a first-pass skim read for light Sunday entertainment.....

My relative has a reasonable authority pension, which W@W rightly suggest not touching, plus they also have a sub-£100k DC pot.

W@W recommend transferring that DC pot to the W@W SIPP to "take advantage of the discretionary managed portfolio service".
Their conclusion showed a comparison with the relatives existing Aviva DC pot....with a low/med/high forecast.....
....but all three forecasts show their SIPP results as being lower than Aviva!

Given they charge a hefty 2% initial transfer, then over 1.5% +VAT annual (versus the 0.875% Aviva all-in costs), their tied solution would need to make serious headway over the Aviva fund (which has behaved well enough in recent years.”


Be VERY care with suggesting their fees are okay.  Taking an extra 2%+ in fees means your funds have to work incredibly hard to make that up!

Albermarle

Given they charge a hefty 2% initial transfer, then over 1.5% +VAT annual (versus the 0.875% Aviva all-in costs),
Plus even the Aviva charge is a bit on the higher side for a workplace pension/low cost SIPP  nowadays.
So someone with a charge of say 0.5%, would be paying even more if they changed to W@W.