OpinionFeb 7 2020

Your Shout: Letters to the editor

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This week...

Consider listed real estate

The article ‘Regulator questions set up of property funds’ (Jan 15) raises a poignant issue around cash management to mitigate the risk of holding illiquid assets in liquid fund structures.

But it begs the question, why are investors exposed to this risk at all? 

Advisers should consider recommending listed real estate more widely because they provide truly liquid access to diverse real estate investments.

Listed real estate also operates a more efficient model where cash is returned to investors or reinvested, rather than sitting on the balance sheet.

Real estate is a critical part of a balanced portfolio. Advisers should simply be providing their clients with the best way of accessing the asset class.

Dominique Moerenhout

European Public Real Estate Association

 

Hypocritical charging rules

An interesting, if not unsurprising, article: ‘PFS reveals adviser concerns on CMCs’ (Jan 23). Good to see the Personal Finance Society airing the views of the advice industry. 

As a financial adviser I am well aware of the unscrupulous activities of some claims management companies. 

One thought occurs to me, which you might like to consider as a ‘campaign’. As an adviser of more than 30 years standing I am not allowed to work with my clients on a contingent charging basis for some areas of advice. 

This is a direction of travel and clearly the way the regulatory regime is heading. 

But, CMCs can blatantly advertise their services – all in the customer’s interests – against the investment adviser sector on an out-and-out contingent charging basis. 

There is no other way to describe “no win, no fee”. 

Does the Financial Conduct Authority not think this is an unfair contradiction? I do, and I dare say anyone with an ounce of decency would agree.

Why can’t CMCs charge an upfront fee like we IFAs have to, irrespective of the outcome? 

Maybe this would be a challenge for the FCA, but it might take a few wheels off the parasitic bandwagon that is causing no end of trouble for honest and experienced advisers.

Keith Jarman

In Focus Asset Management

 

Happy SJP customer

You find a neverending supply of complainers about charges at St James’s Place (‘Why SJP will not review its charges’, Jan 19).

I have been with them a while. I have a self-invested personal pension with them, which, over the past 12 months, revealed a 8.1 per cent performance after all charges were taken into account.

After chatting to friends and colleagues, had I been with another company I’m not so sure I would have fared as well.

It is the outcome that matters, not the charges.

Stuart H Watson

 

‘Spotless’ regulator

One wonders how this tiny fine (‘FCA fined £2k for pension scheme failures’, Jan 27), which is not even petty cash for the FCA, compares to the kind of fines the FCA and The Pensions Regulator levy on adviser and company miscreants? Not even in the same ball park. 

Yes, I know this is the maximum that TPR can levy for this kind of offence – but for heaven’s sake, the FCA should be spotless when it comes to this sort of thing.

Harry Katz

Ha7 Consulting

 

Unfair levy

On what planet does anyone seriously think that it is fair to penalise the innocent for the utter, and ongoing, failings of the industry regulator (‘Outcry grows as advisers’ FSCS bills soar again’, Jan 29)?

Making matters a whole lot worse though is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which continues to provide huge settlements for clients based upon their own unqualified judgements.

Do they not understand that they are wrecking our industry – or is it just their plan to force the public back into the hands of those trusty bankers?

Name and address supplied

 

Woodford debacle

As an IFA for many years I find the handling of this deplorable (‘Woodford investors face £10m wind up cost’, Jan 30). 

Many people are facing a substantial loss on their investment and it is the IFAwho will no doubt be held responsible when the complaints start rolling in.

Where was the FCA while all this was going on? How can Neil Woodford get away with millions of pounds in fees when the fund had been suspended ?

No doubt the fees for winding up the fund will also be deducted from investors’ already diluted pots.

My opinion is that a full inquiry into the goings on in this fund should be conducted and Mr Woodford held accountable. At the very least he should be made to refund the fees he withdrew while the fund was being suspended.

Name and address supplied

 

‘Legal’ CMCs

I read with interest your article setting out the scourge CMCs are to financial services (‘PFS reveals adviser concerns on CMCs’, Jan 23). I wondered if you had considered the greater issue faced by financial services companies, namely the so-called ‘legal CMCs’, which fall under the wing of the Solicitors Regulation Authority?

The SRA-authorised CMCs tend first to serve firms with a data subject access request in order to establish if they have any possible legal claim case against the firm involved before hitting them with a preliminary notice of a professional negligence claim.

My concern is that the SRA appears to exercise very little control over legal CMCs and they appear to be free to dress up highly speculative and spurious compensation claims under the guise of genuine legal claims, from which they stand to gain a high rate of return should any compensation be paid out to the customer they represent.

Name and address supplied

[By legal CMCs he means the claims side of law firms, who operate much like FCA authorised CMCs, just under the guise of being part of a SRA regulated legal practice.]