What is a Fund Manager Initial Charge?

Often a fund manager will apply an initial charge when you buy a Unit Trust, OEIC (Open Ended Investment Company) or ISA investment. If there is an initial charge, it will normally be deducted from the amount you intend investing in a fund. The charge is made by the fund manager to cover costs it incurs when setting up your investment in a fund and includes dealing and administration costs. Initial charges typically range from 3% to 5.25%. They can vary between fund managers and also between the funds that a fund manager may offer. However, if you buy online SFS Invest Direct will rebate all our initial fee to reduce the overall initial charge.  

What is an Annual Management Charge?

An Annual Management Charge (AMC) is a fee applied to your investment on a yearly basis by a fund manager. The charge is in place to cover expenses incurred by the fund manager in the running of the fund, for example fees, administration costs and investment management costs and an element of profit for the fund manager.

Annual Management Charges are normally a percentage of the value of your fund and can be typically between 1% and 1.5%.

What are the charges for switching funds?

Once you’ve registered and become a SFS Invest Direct customer you can switch the funds that you hold as often as you like, however we wouldn’t advise you to do it that often. A reduced initial switch charge of 0.25% is available on many fund. To switch the funds that you are currently invested in, please login to access Your Account.

What is the SFS Initial Charge?

Intermediaries such as SFS commonly receive an initial fee from a fund manager when a client invests in one of the fund manager’s funds, (this would be referred to as SFS Initial Charge). Our initial fee is accounted for by the fund managers in their initial charges and is a percentage of your initial investment into a fund. Typically, the percentage for an intermediary’s initial charge on ISAs, Unit Trusts and OEICs can be as high as 5%.

When you buy online with SFS Invest Direct we pass on 100% of our initial fee back to you to reduce the overall initial charge made by the fund managers. However, if you require advice from one of Skipton Financial Services’ advisers it is not possible to pass the initial fee on to you because it is required to cover the cost of providing advice. To arrange a meeting with one of our SFS advisers, please click here. 

What is Ongoing SFS Charge?

Fund managers pay intermediaries, including SFS Invest Direct, an ongoing charge in relation to your investment in their fund. The ongoing SFS charge is calculated as a percentage of the value of your fund investment, typically this percentage is 0.5% per annum paid by the provider. Our ongoing charge is accounted for by the fund managers within the Annual Management Charge (AMC).