Anyone have experience leaving Fisher Investments?

Superdude0499

Hello,

About 3 and a half years ago I let myself be cajoled into partially transferring my WP pension into their offering. Don't get me wrong, the performance, whilst volatile, has been OK (up circa 17% over the period they have had my funds). I now get periodically badgered to transfer more of my WP pension into which I chuck 30K/year, which I am reluctant to do.

Thanks to this forum and the myriad of reputable online commentators (Meaningful money, James Shack, Pensioncraft et al), I am now much more comfortable with managing my own affairs. 

Their last assessment of my needs together with their recommendation for WP transfer was less than inspiring (but honest). They state they would need to outperform my WP offering by 1.35% before breaking even - seems unlikely since both are 100% Global Equity with quite a lot of overlap. At the end of the 'recommendation' they show just how much poorer I would be once fees are accounted for over the long term (30 years or so).

Should I need advise at point of retirement (7 years), I think my needs will be better suited to local IFA (if at all).

Anyway, enough waffle, my question is - Does anyone have experience of leaving them? How protracted was the process? i.e. time out of the market.

Thanks in advance for any responses ('shouldn't have touched them with a barge pole' is not helpful .)

wjr4

Open another pension and transfer it into there? They shouldn’t need to be involved? 

LHW99

But check if you can just transfer it as funds. You may have to put it into cash first.

dunstonh

LHW99 said:

But check if you can just transfer it as funds. You may have to put it into cash first.

They use own brand funds.  A transfer out will auto-sell those with no need to do anything.

Superdude0499

Thanks for the responses. Very reassuring if that simple. I feel I ought to inform them of my intentions rather than just instigate transfer. Thanks again.

Albermarle

Superdude0499 said:

Thanks for the responses. Very reassuring if that simple. I feel I ought to inform them of my intentions rather than just instigate transfer. Thanks again.

Normally you do not need to contact the ceding scheme. In fact may just confuse matters. 

Chickereeeee

Superdude0499 said:

Thanks for the responses. Very reassuring if that simple. I feel I ought to inform them of my intentions rather than just instigate transfer. Thanks again.

Do you also inform Sainsburys if you move your monthly shop to Waitrose?

Superdude0499

Albermarle said:

Superdude0499 said:

Thanks for the responses. Very reassuring if that simple. I feel I ought to inform them of my intentions rather than just instigate transfer. Thanks again.

Normally you do not need to contact the ceding scheme. In fact may just confuse matters. 

If only it was that simple. The way they have it organised is the Sipp is administered by one provider, whilst held by a separate custodian. i.e. another layer of fees. Unsure as to whether the ceding scheme Sipp reference (administrator) is enough to instigate transfer or whether it is the custodian, or both. I will have to contact FI to clarify and thus contend with the barrage of phone calls to persuade me that transferring is the worst idea in the history of ideas!

Malthusian

Superdude0499 said:

If only it was that simple. The way they have it organised is the Sipp is administered by one provider, whilst held by a separate custodian. i.e. another layer of fees. Unsure as to whether the ceding scheme Sipp reference (administrator) is enough to instigate transfer or whether it is the custodian, or both. I will have to contact FI to clarify and thus contend with the barrage of phone calls to persuade me that transferring is the worst idea in the history of ideas!

Your new pension scheme will need to contact the provider of the SIPP wrapper, which is the one that has an HMRC pension scheme number and collects tax relief and all that. It sounds that within the SIPP there may be a separate account which holds the investments. If so, the SIPP provider will, in the course of winding up the pension and transferring out the funds, instruct that provider to sell the investments. Depending on how it is set up, your signature might be needed for that as well. But you can cross that bridge when you come to it.

If you use an IFA they will be able to work out where the new scheme needs to send the transfer forms. If you are DIYing, I would look at the annual statements for the SIPP and put that down when your new pension provider asks you for the details of the pension you want to transfer in.
 
You will probably need to contend with the barrage of calls at some point, but you don't have to do it now. Albemarle is correct, the first step is to set up the new pension and give the new provider your transfer instruction, who in turn contacts the ceding scheme.

There is usually no point in contacting the ceding scheme, because all they will do is tell you they need to wait for your transfer instruction from the new scheme.

The exception is if the ceding scheme does not use Origo and will need to issue their own transfer forms. But even if that is the case, you can always cross that bridge when you come to it if you don't feel like dealing with their retentions team right now. And if you use an IFA, they will usually ask the ceding scheme for any transfer forms required for you.

Superdude0499

Thanks for taking the time for considered response. ‘New’ pension is already set up, ie Workplace offering (L&G) who have a range of inexpensive choices that suit my needs. Combined charges of 0.15% for global tracker as opposed to 1.7% with FI. Other option is to go with II with whom I hold an ISA. Probably go with former to keep all in same place and provide them with SIPP providers details to get the ball rolling.