Anyone Recommend A Good Sipp

[roblpm]

I've got 2 crappy personal pensions for about £10k each which I would like to amalgamate into a SIPP so I can at least blow them playing the stock market as pretty worthless in terms of retirement income (one with equitable life!!). On a more serious not I can then use this for any more personal pension contributions. So what I am looking for is very low charges. Anyone done this??

[aclwalker]

I've got 2 crappy personal pensions for about £10k each which I would like to amalgamate into a SIPP so I can at least blow them playing the stock market as pretty worthless in terms of retirement income (one with equitable life!!). On a more serious not I can then use this for any more personal pension contributions. So what I am looking for is very low charges. Anyone done this??

roblpm, I am in the same situation and have 3 to amalgamate together. The one I favoured the most was www.sippdeal.co.uk. I will not be contributing to it on a monthly basis but am instead intending to transfer in personal pensions as I leave employers, rather than be stuck with their choice and a proliferation of schemes.

Charges were important to me and I felt that this one had the best charge structure, although the Hargreaves Landsdown one was also good, but if you don't buy funds where they get commission then there's an annual fee. Sippdeal does not charge an annual fee so I felt this was better, especially sinec I favour investment trusts and individual shares. However, there's always a downside. Sippdeal currently charge £85 per transfer in, whereas I think HL don't charge at all.

I am therefore in the process of amalgamating my 3 schemes into one and THEN transferring it to a SIPP, so as to pay only one transfer fee rather than 3. I have not opened the SIPP yet, since this process is happening now.

I know one person who has a Sippdeal SIPP and is pleased with it.

I did some pretty extensive research and there were few other candidates for me.

www.sippdealextra.co.uk is related to sippdeal (I think) and if I remember correctly the main difference is that you can choose which broker to use, but there is an annual fee with this one.

Another one was www.esipp.co.uk. The dealing charges were higher with this one though and it involves the Abbey who I have an (probably unreasonable) aversion to.

There are also SIPPs available from some investment trust providers. One of the most interesting of these was alliancetrusts.co.uk. The charges are very low if you invest in their trusts, but I think they prices went up a fair bit if you invested in other shares.

[roblpm]

Thanks for that. Looks good. Is the Bank of Scotland I think.

Seems clear ........ £30 max + stamp duty on share purchases.

£20 with all charges rebated on unit trusts, however is there an annual charge on some of these unit trusts?? And is there a difference between a fund and a unit trust??

[aclwalker]

Thanks for that. Looks good. Is the Bank of Scotland I think.

Seems clear ........ £30 max + stamp duty on share purchases.

£20 with all charges rebated on unit trusts, however is there an annual charge on some of these unit trusts?? And is there a difference between a fund and a unit trust??

As far as I know the Bank of Scotland only hold the cash deposits, although its a while since I looked at the Sippdeal offer. Most SIPPs appeared to be joint ventures to me, i.e. someone would be the broker, someone else would manage it and someone else would hold any cash.

As for the difference between funds and unit trusts, as far as I am aware a "fund" is really a generic term for a collective investment. Somebody else may be able to give a better definition.

It's important to realise the difference between the wrapper and the underlying investments though. A wrapper can be an ISA or a SIPP and is usually tax-efficient (or else there'd be no point in them). The underlying investments can be unit trusts, investment trusts, individual shares, cash, etc. and can be bought in either ISAs or SIPPs, or even outwith any wrapper at all.

Unit trusts are "open-ended" collective investments (or funds, if you like) which basically means that when you buy units you give them money and then they go and buy more of the underlying investments.

Investment trusts are "closed-ended" meaning that there's a finite number of 'units' (more about this in a minute) meaning that when you buy an investment trust you are buying it from somebody else. No extra underlying investments are bought when you buy an investment trust. They are not really referred to as "units" since they are really just shares in a company you are buying, a company that buys shares in other companies. No new shares (units) are created when you buy an investment trust, although I guess they must increase the number of shares available at some point. I'm not clear on these details.

Personally I prefer investment trusts as you can buy them just like shares. Unit trusts tend to have complicated fee structures which are returned if you buy through certain people and rebated if you hold them for a certain while.

There are also OEICs which are Open Ended Investment Companies which I gather are some sort of a halfway house but I don't know much about them.

Check out www.trustnet.com for more information on collective investments.

[foxytrader]

I've got 2 crappy personal pensions for about £10k each which I would like to amalgamate into a SIPP so I can at least blow them playing the stock market as pretty worthless in terms of retirement income (one with equitable life!!). On a more serious not I can then use this for any more personal pension contributions. So what I am looking for is very low charges. Anyone done this??

I use the sippcentre which is the broker's version of sippdeal. The charges are pretty low - set up £120 + VAT and quarterly charge of between £20-£40 dependent on fund size. Transfers are £60 + VAT each.

Please remember that it is believe it or not cheaper to use an intermediary to set up your Sipp than to do it yourself unless you are trading individual stocks and shares and even then it's pennies. The 1.5% AMC on most unit trusts and OEICs contains 0.5% for the broker. If you invest direct you cannot have this rebated to yourself so you end up paying the same to get no service.

All Sipps operate around a bank account and require a Sipp administrator who will also act as trustee to ensure compliance with legislation. They will not provide investment advice.

Get a decent IFA. Won't cost you anything.