The Lemon Fool

We have some old Legal & General Index Tracker ISAs which are managed and administered by L&G themselves. They are moving the administration of these to Fidelity. Is that a good, bad or benign thing?

I have used Hargreaves Lansdown for some later equity ISAs and Mrs C has some in iWeb. Is it possible - and would it be better - to move those investments to HL and iWeb?

To be honest, I don't fully understand the roles that all these different organisations play and what my options are. For example if I moved the L&G ISAs to HL administration, could I move the ISA money out of L&G funds into my Vanguard funds while retaining their ISA status?

Thanks
C

Clariman wrote:To be honest, I don't fully understand the roles that all these different organisations play and what my options are. For example if I moved the L&G ISAs to HL administration, could I move the ISA money out of L&G funds into my Vanguard funds while retaining their ISA status?

Yes, you can sell the L&G funds and buy Vanguard funds with the proceeds. HL and Fidelity both charge an arm and a leg for holding open ended funds: OEICs and unit trusts. If you want to hold those rather than ETFs, you would be better off moving to iWeb (or one of the other Halifax brands) or Interactive Investor. If your accounts are small, the Vanguard platform would also be an option. Here is a broker comparison:

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheape ... e-brokers/

GeoffF100 wrote:

Clariman wrote:To be honest, I don't fully understand the roles that all these different organisations play and what my options are. For example if I moved the L&G ISAs to HL administration, could I move the ISA money out of L&G funds into my Vanguard funds while retaining their ISA status?

Yes, you can sell the L&G funds and buy Vanguard funds with the proceeds. HL and Fidelity both charge an arm and a leg for holding open ended funds: OEICs and unit trusts. If you want to hold those rather than ETFs, you would be better off moving to iWeb (or one of the other Halifax brands) or Interactive Investor. If your accounts are small, the Vanguard platform would also be an option. Here is a broker comparison:

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheape ... e-brokers/

Thanks. And would they still retain their ISA status if I sold and bought?

Clariman wrote:

GeoffF100 wrote:

Clariman wrote:To be honest, I don't fully understand the roles that all these different organisations play and what my options are. For example if I moved the L&G ISAs to HL administration, could I move the ISA money out of L&G funds into my Vanguard funds while retaining their ISA status?

Yes, you can sell the L&G funds and buy Vanguard funds with the proceeds. HL and Fidelity both charge an arm and a leg for holding open ended funds: OEICs and unit trusts. If you want to hold those rather than ETFs, you would be better off moving to iWeb (or one of the other Halifax brands) or Interactive Investor. If your accounts are small, the Vanguard platform would also be an option. Here is a broker comparison:

https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheape ... e-brokers/

Thanks. And would they still retain their ISA status if I sold and bought?

Yes, provided that you sell and re-buy within the ISA, and do not withdraw the money from it.

It is very important to understand that you need to transfer the ISAs, and not withdraw the money and open an account with another platform. The usual procedure for doing that is to open an account with another platform, and request the transfer with the provider of that platform. You will need to check that the receiving platform can hold the funds that you want to transfer. You would would have a problem with transferring to Vanguard (unless L&G can hold Vanguard funds). You would have to sell into cash, and potentially wait months for the transfer to complete. That would not be good.

In charges terms, its best to stay clear of the generic term "fund". Best to think of ETF/OEIC/Unit Trust/Investment Trust. Index trackers come in the first 2 flavours. You can hold both in ISAs, HL will charge more for the latter than the former. Inside an ISA with no tax reporting worries, look for accumulating units, ACC to save worrying about reinvestment.

Once you've decided on an index and platform, then the fun is finding which of Vanguard, Blackrock, Fidelity etc does an ACC ETF or OEIC and appears on the platform. It can be pot-luck, and I've ended up with ETF and OEIC, and any of those managers on my IWeb and HL accounts. They all seem equally good, and I manage to pay only £200 for large ISA/SIPP/unsheltered holdings.

The key thing to check is what charges will the L&G funds have under Fidelity administration. If more than 0.1% for famous indexes, and 0.2% for smaller ones, then its worth shopping around.

Clariman wrote:We have some old Legal & General Index Tracker ISAs which are managed and administered by L&G themselves. They are moving the administration of these to Fidelity.

It's perhaps clearer to think of what you currently hold as being in two parts. You have a Legal & General ISA which contains holdings of Legal & General Index Tracker funds (OEICs presumably). For the future it is proposed that you will have a Fidelity ISA containing holdings of Legal & General Index Tracker OEICs.

Presuming that you are on Fidelity's standard terms, you should have access to all the investments allowed by Fidelity in their ISA. This may or may not include Vanguard OEICs and ETFs. As someone else suggested, watch out for fees charged directly as a percentage of value. That's over and above the fees that are extracted as part of price performance.

It's possible to transfer from one ISA manager to another. The process is always started by contacting the ISA manager you want to transfer to.

" HL and Fidelity both charge an arm and leg for holding open ended funds"

What about selling the open ended fund within the Fidelity ISA and buying the nearest equivalent exchange traded version in order to get the capped £45 charge? For example: Fidelity Index UK class p looks to be a very cheap tracker ignoring platform charges? is there a near equivalent?

dubre wrote:What about selling the open ended fund within the Fidelity ISA and buying the nearest equivalent exchange traded version in order to get the capped £45 charge? For example: Fidelity Index UK class p looks to be a very cheap tracker ignoring platform charges? is there a near equivalent?

The cheapest appears to be Lyxor Core Morningstar UK ETF at 0.04% OCF:

https://www.youinvest.co.uk/market-research/LSE:LCUK