Reasonably priced wealth managers

caldi9

Hey, when I see the implied costs and requirements of some wealth managers, it feels like some providers have lost the plot. Are there any wealth managers that don’t ask for minimum assets moved over of £500k or so? Just looking for better service and fx rates etc than standard retail banks offer these days. Many thanks

Clive_Woody

You're much better off with an IFA rather than a wealth manager. Emphasis on independent (financial manager).

boingy

Myself, my wife and my parents have all had very hit and miss advice from paying IFAs for advice. On balance we'd all have been better off just investing in a passive tracker, and this is across about 35 years. I would not use an IFA again. 

If you do use one, choose one with a single up front fee rather than an ongoing charge and always remember that the IFA gets paid regardless of the quality of the advice and the performance of the investments.

These days there is more information available than ever before about all manner of financial things, including on here (some of which is from IFAs in their leisure time!) so it's always worth taking some time to research stuff yourself. Even if you go on to use an IFA you'll have a better understanding of what they are advising.

(I've got a small wager with myself about who else will respond in this thread!)

RogerPensionGuy

boingy said:

Myself, my wife and my parents have all had very hit and miss advice from paying IFAs for advice. On balance we'd all have been better off just investing in a passive tracker, and this is across about 35 years. I would not use an IFA again. 

If you do use one, choose one with a single up front fee rather than an ongoing charge and always remember that the IFA gets paid regardless of the quality of the advice and the performance of the investments.

These days there is more information available than ever before about all manner of financial things, including on here (some of which is from IFAs in their leisure time!) so it's always worth taking some time to research stuff yourself. Even if you go on to use an IFA you'll have a better understanding of what they are advising.

(I've got a small wager with myself about who else will respond in this thread!)

I think many people on here are pretty savvy and maybe we collectively don’t require big expensive organisations or people looking after our finances.

However for people not too savvy and/or needs more that basic manageable stuff I'm sure advisors and wealth management services have value.

I always think that as we get older and die things will have changed like pension rules, many taxes and maybe if anyone inherits my stuff they may indeed need help.

However I agree in business it's not uncommon for a business to put its own interests in front of their customers, one memory in my mind writing this post, see below. 

I was out with an old friend early in 2022 and he just informed me he had CETV'd his full gold plated fully indexed of 2M in to a SIPP using a recommended IFA. 

I was surprised and asked him was their a plan to mitigate the LTA?

He had no knowledge, information and potential implications of the LTA so I just said his IFA has probably got it well covered and he didn't need to know.

This fellow was a senior manager in his big organisation for a long long time, he was not alone as we know here, many of his colleagues did the same.

Looks like hes been very lucky with the LTA being gone now and in reality a 2M pot looks like he happens to be in a pretty good spot now, but possibly by luck more than good planning.

About investment performance in general, it sure appears to me a simple low cost pension or whatever vehicle plonked in global market stuff will work perfectly and reduce sleeplessness night when we have big long downturns and we don't see the IFAs and their platform manages chunking out X% charges no matter what the pot does or how it performs.

Whilst on my orange box, I've never had advisors tell me they will reduce or stop a customers charges if the go say X% below the benchmark, has anyone been offered this?

caldi9

Clive_Woody said:

You're much better off with an IFA rather than a wealth manager. Emphasis on independent (financial manager).

Rather want access to certain private equity funds, good fix rates for conversions etc. IFA can’t do any of that.