Standard Life has admitted that policyholders who receive windfall shares will lose their entitlement to bonus shares if they hold them in a SIPP or an ISA.
Policyholders will get free bonus shares if they hold onto their initial allocation for 12 months after demutualisation, but the provider has said that transferring them into a self-invested personal pension or an ISA is classed as a change of ownership and they are effectively owned by the pension trustees or ISA manager.
Our view
If those are the rules upon which Standard Life demutualised then so be it. We suggest that if you want to benefit from bonus shares you hold onto existing shares and then swicth then to an ISA or SIPP when you haev them all.