Although the rise in charges was criticised in the Sandler Review, Royal & Sun Alliance have still raised their fund charges. This will bring them into line with those at Friends Ivory & Sime, ahead of the merger of the two fund managers. Davina Curling’s European fund charges will increase from 1.25% to 1.5% with effect from 1 October 2002, as well as those for Andrew Hudson’s US fund.
Peter Marshall, marketing manager for R & SAI said that they were bringing their charges into line with the rest of the industry.
Our View
Whilst rises in charges are not good and discourage people to invest, these charge levels are in line with investment management groups four unit trust, ISA and PEP products. They are however, expensive against peer group for life insurance and pension funds where the average is 0.75% to 1.25%.