Fisher Investments - opinions

[Tony B2]

Apologies if this has been asked dozens of times before, but the search function here is a complete waste of effort.

I am in discussion with Fisher about transferring some of my DC pensions to them for management, and possibly also some cash.

Opinions on them please - in terms of fund performance, ease of dealing with them, costs, risks etc (e.g. they fall under US regulations rather than UK).

Actual customer experience would be particularly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[halo34]

Tony B2 said:

Apologies if this has been asked dozens of times before, but the search function here is a complete waste of effort.

I am in discussion with Fisher about transferring some of my DC pensions to them for management, and possibly also some cash.

Opinions on them please - in terms of fund performance, ease of dealing with them, costs, risks etc (e.g. they fall under US regulations rather than UK).

Actual customer experience would be particularly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Lots of info needed but generally

Trustpilot reviews are dire mostly USA based reviews but not good reading.

Nothing on their site about what they actually charge - am assuming they will want advice charges and portfolio management fees and maybe trading fees

Nothing on their site about what portfolios they have that are performing.

Generally for me alot of blah on the site but nothing tangible I can see that backs up their claims.

Personally I manage my own SIPP (within funds) and do fine without financial advice everytime I want to fart. I say fine - its ok but at a risk level I am ok with.

So unless they are adding a huge amount of value and have funds to back it up - its hard to say - then lay over the fees and see how that goes.

[MaxFromage]

A client was looking to move a sizable amount of money to them about 10 years ago. I convinced them not to make the move based on the advice the representative provided, the manner in which they were provided the advice and the costs involved. The reviews were the icing on the cake.

[Kickstart]

Vanguard charge £350 if you want advice
Tread carefully this world is full of sharks and incompetents

[Sheepshanks]

Mate of mine moved his pension fund to them about a month before Covid struck. He’s a bit of a gung-ho kind of personality and he liked that they thought he should be aggressive and that they don’t like bonds. He’s made it sound like they’ve put a portfolio together for him, but he might just be in one of their funds.

His fund dropped significantly (as everything did when Covid hit) and he was pretty sick about it but of course those types of stocks have recovered and then some. Last time we spoke about it (few mths ago) he said he was pretty well double - but I got the impression that was from the Covid low.

He says he uses them for advice and it’s all in the fee of 1.5% but I don’t think they provide full advice on wealth management etc type stuff.

He referred me to them and they gently chased for a while but I was on the verge of retiring and wanted more complete financial advice. I did read the Trustpilot reviews a while ago and a lot of them seem to be from people who invested for a few mths then panicked.

[Derek Chevalier]

Kickstart said:

Vanguard charge £350 if you want advice

Do you have a link?

https://www.moneymarketing.co.uk/features/where-ne...

[Mr Whippy]

If they can’t give you a case study of the kind of money you’re bringing, what they’ll do with it, charge you, and the historical perf for the last 5-10yrs… then why would you even touch them?

They’re selling a financial service, so you need to know what you’re getting.

[river_rat]

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[Jackals]

Your investments with Fisher will simply be placed in their active managed fund (link below) rather than creating a bespoke portfolio. I did a review of a mutual clients investments with them earlier this year, with being a US firm their main focus was on US equity with the fund being 5-10% overweight depending on which benchmark you use. It's quite a concentrated portfolio with the top 10 (out of 103 at the time) holdings taking up a 31% weighting and with majority being the Mag 7. I managed to work out the charges p.a. being 1.83% and yes it has been doing 10%+ p.a. performance wise, but personally you could easily replicate the asset allocation and performance from holding 80% in the Vanguard S&P500 tracker and the remaining 20% in the Ishares ACWI tracker.

https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/snapshot/sn...

[Derek Chevalier]

Jackals said:

Your investments with Fisher will simply be placed in their active managed fund (link below) rather than creating a bespoke portfolio. I did a review of a mutual clients investments with them earlier this year, with being a US firm their main focus was on US equity with the fund being 5-10% overweight depending on which benchmark you use. It's quite a concentrated portfolio with the top 10 (out of 103 at the time) holdings taking up a 31% weighting and with majority being the Mag 7. I managed to work out the charges p.a. being 1.83% and yes it has been doing 10%+ p.a. performance wise, but personally you could easily replicate the asset allocation and performance from holding 80% in the Vanguard S&P500 tracker and the remaining 20% in the Ishares ACWI tracker.

https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/snapshot/sn...

This type of analysis is key (for all offerings, not specific to Fisher) for investors to undertake to understand exactly what they are investing in and the corresponding risks.

[Sheepshanks]

Maybe this is happening as I did once have a discussion with them, but it puts me off that I get absolutely loads of adverts for them appearing wherever I look.

I also got an email survey from them last night that says it's a "feedback survey" but clearly the questions are designed to give them angles to use that they can follow up in a call.

Maybe their MO is to batter people into submission.