Hargreaves Lansdowne ISA

MrMicawber_2

The funds are in a nominee account underwritten by RBS or Lloyds I think - not sure which.

moneylover - yes you can use the BI research facilities.

earlgrey_3

[Deleted User] wrote:

Hi,
where did you find this?

I have recently moved some peps/isas to the Vantage Fund and was not made aware of this, also have some isas which I bought through them.

Thought funds would still be with management company.Thanks.

Munk gives that figure in his post here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=7928011#post7928011
"Worth saying though here perhaps that you should also check to see what compensation is offered in the highly unlikely event that the fund supermarket goes bust. For example with HL this total is £48k max compensation."

It's been pointed out elsewhere though that most of use are unlikely to have large amounts controlled by the intermediary when buying UTs. They should be passed on to the trust managers or whatever - though I seem to remember a few large-scale frauds by intermediaries some years back. Not quite sure where that leaves ISAs with shareholdings exactly. Suppose it is a good idea to have some idea what the safeguards are rather than just assume it's all fully taken care of by those clever regulators.

Kay_Peel

I really wonder about Hargreaves Lansdowne sometimes. :rolleyes:

There is a fund launch due on 31st March 2008. HL is offering a discount of 4.5% on the initial 5% charge. The Fund has already made it into their Wealth 150 of recommended funds: :eek:

http://www.h-l.co.uk/fund_research/fund_key_features/sedol/B2Q8L64.hl

The recommendation is based on a hunch - which may be right and possibly will be an inspired hunch if the fund is kept for a decade or so. My concern is that the recommendation is made before the fund has been tried and tested.

I suspect - I could be wrong - that HL has a target to beat. They have obtained a substantial, unbeatable discount from the fund managers and now have to pay-back with a swathe of customers and their money.

Kay

[Deleted User]

Hi,

interesting, let's punt this and see how it goes.

I agree with your thinking, they have got themselves covered with 'investments can go up or down' warning, not really caring what happens.

At the end of the day, you pays your money and take your chance

I got caught out years ago with Fidelity International, still have them, but still down about 14%.

JDinho

Kay_Peel wrote: »

I really wonder about Hargreaves Lansdowne sometimes. :rolleyes:

There is a fund launch due on 31st March 2008. HL is offering a discount of 4.5% on the initial 5% charge. The Fund has already made it into their Wealth 150 of recommended funds: :eek:

http://www.h-l.co.uk/fund_research/fund_key_features/sedol/B2Q8L64.hl

The recommendation is based on a hunch - which may be right and possibly will be an inspired hunch if the fund is kept for a decade or so. My concern is that the recommendation is made before the fund has been tried and tested.

I suspect - I could be wrong - that HL has a target to beat. They have obtained a substantial, unbeatable discount from the fund managers and now have to pay-back with a swathe of customers and their money.

Kay

There's a spare seat on the bandwagon now that Schroder Agriculture is closed

jaxxbizkit

Cofunds is a good company (used to work for them in essex!)

However there are a lot of companies out there that do the same type of work. Hargreaves do a lot of transfer business but I dont know anything about their "after sales service"

Fidelity also do a lot of transfer business but dont always support the fund that you are currently invested in.

Most companies will not charge an exit fee from your investment. This does depend on what you hold though. OEICs are generally free. Units Trusts may carry an exit charge same with Investment Trusts

dunstonh

The recommendation is based on a hunch - which may be right and possibly will be an inspired hunch if the fund is kept for a decade or so. My concern is that the recommendation is made before the fund has been tried and tested.

HL DO NOT MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS!!!!

If they were recommendations then the would be facing a massive load of misselling complaints because the material would be uncompliant for advice.

Maybe this was what the FOS was suggesting not too long back when it said it would consider a nod towards a fund or product as being advice whether the advice word was used or not.

I do wonder how they get away publishing what they do without fear of complaint. We have seen many times on the board that people are taking the list as advice. Maybe no-one has complained yet.

Anyway, the fund has good potential. You invest for potential not because of what it did 5 years ago. Obviously it is higher risk fund but it is good for a very small chunk in a diversified portfolio.

They have obtained a substantial, unbeatable discount from the fund managers and now have to pay-back with a swathe of customers and their money.

Have you noticed how many more funds are only getting a 0.1% discount on the amc nowadays? Barely enough to make the discount point worthwhile.

Kay_Peel

dunstonh wrote: »

HL DO NOT MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS!!!!

Correct. They do cover their backsides with a disclaimer. However, they also say:

"The Wealth 150 represents what we believe to be the best funds across all the major sectors, so wherever you choose to invest you should find something of interest. We are proud of our record; since launch in 2003, it has outperformed the MSCI World Index by 35%. For a fund to be included in the Wealth 150 it must go through a rigourous (sic) selection process. Our 10 strong research team use complex mathmatical (sic) models and meet with over 300 fund managers a year. All funds within the Wealth 150 are continually monitored."

Of course it's not a recommendation! Who, but a complete novice to investing, could possibly mistake it for a recommendation!
But how on earth did a fund that doesn't even exist make it into the Wealth 150? What was the rigorous selection process and the complicated mathematical model?

That's why I say that I really wonder about HL, sometimes, and wouldn't be too quick to recommend them to new investors. I would heartily recommend them to anyone who knows what they are doing, bins all the HL rubbish that comes through the litterbox (sic), and wants a discount for the fund that they themselves have researched.

munk

First of all, I agree with you re wealth 150 list being a list of recommendations - what else is it when someone says 'we believe xyz fund has the potential to do well yada yada yada'? dunstonh alludes to that point anyway so I don't think whether wealth150 list represents 'recommendation' or not is really up for debate, there are always ways for brokerages to position themselves so as not to get into trouble with the FSA (who don't seem to have too much of a clue about anything anyway so is all by-the-by).

My point is that whilst I agree in being curious as to how HL can 'recommend' a fund without it having any performance history (I think they indicate the future potential for agri in relation to world demand vs inflation?), their primary reason for doing so is doubtless because they receive incentives from the financial companies that offer the fund - high amc rebates and init charge discounts. If, in turn, they pass on these rebates/discounts to their customers then perhaps this isn't such a bad deal?

I seem to remember that they highlighted the excellent analyst team at Sarasin as a reason for putting the fund on their wealth 150 list as well. It could also be that the fund manager's career record has been good enough to warrant immediate addition to the list (again, haven't looked into this, just thinking of valid reasons why they might add a fund to the w150 list without it having a proven track record).

Sometimes though it can get a bit boring hearing the same blurb in newspapers by Mark Dampier et al - for example in the times yet again today he was extolling the praises of the Neptune Russia and Greater Russia fund and the . This seems to have been the case for the last 6 months or so now. Just hope for his sake the fund picks up after a fairly lacklustre year in 2007. Who'd be a pundit?


@earlgrey though regards FSCS compensation scheme for HL - I would think the £48k compensation limit for HL probably applies to any monies held directly with HL - for example cash that you hold on an account with HL or any investments/holdings you have that are run by HL - for example their cash ISA, their MultiManager funds, their cash accounts associated with their Vantage fund accounts where money is held prior to being invested into funds etc.

However I imagine if you have a diversified portfolio of say funds with a number of different financial institutions like Invesco Perpetual, Jupiter, Neptune (or any of the other stars!) then you would be spreading out your money across the different financial companies - ie if you had £100k spread across 10 diff financial service providers/companies with £10k in each, you'd be covered for any loss by any of those companies individually by the FSCS (presuming all 10 sign up/contribute to the FSCS scheme).

Again though this is a hunch - would be best to ask HL directly about this if it's a major concern.

cheerfulcat

munk wrote: »

I seem to remember that they highlighted the excellent analyst team at Sarasin as a reason for putting the fund on their wealth 150 list as well. It could also be that the fund manager's career record has been good enough to warrant immediate addition to the list (again, haven't looked into this, just thinking of valid reasons why they might add a fund to the w150 list without it having a proven track record).

That was certainly the case with the New Star UK Select Opps fund - HL flagged it up at launch because it was ( and is still ) managed by Patrick Evershed. It was in their Wealth 150 for a while and then dropped out because of poor performance - after, it has to be said, a storming start.