Well, the votes have been counted and we can now reveal the winners of the 2007 What Investment Readers’ Awards. Back in April, we asked you to send your nominations for the best product or service providers in 12 categories, listed in the left-hand table.

There is a vast number of investment-based awards but the important thing about these awards is that the winners have been determined by you, the readers of What Investment. There was no shortlist for you to choose from. These awards have been determined by the impression that each investment house and service provider has made on our readership, either through the consistency of their performance or the quality of their service.

Indeed, several of this year’s winners have highlighted the fact that they feel it is particularly significant to have an award that has been voted for by, as one put it, ‘real people investing real money’.

So our thanks to you, the readers of What Investment, for taking the trouble to vote, and to the winners and those placed second and third, for the high-quality investments and services that they provide.

Here, we profile each of the winners and highlight what it is that makes them stand out from their competitors, making them the worthy winners of a What Investment Readers’ Award.

Awards results – The roll of honour

Best unit trust/OEIC provider
1 Fidelity
2 Jupiter
3 New Star

Best investment trust provider
1 Baillie Gifford
1 JPMorgan
3 F&C

Best sharedealing service
1 Hargreaves Lansdown
2 The Share Centre
3 Redmayne Bentley

Best pension provider
1 Prudential
1 Standard Life
3 Alliance Trust

Best SIPP provider
1 Hargreaves Lansdown
2 Alliance Trust
3 SIPP Deal Extra

Best discretionary wealth manager
1 UBS
2 Close
3 Gerrards

Best cash ISA provider
1 Kent Reliance Building Society
1 Nationwide Building Society
3 National Savings & Investments

Best stocks and shares ISA provider
1 Alliance Trust
2 Fidelity
3 Invesco Perpetual

Best property finance provider
1 Nationwide Building Society
2 Halifax
3 Abbey

Best children’s investment provider
1 F&C
2 Witan
3 JPMorgan

Best savings account
1 Birmingham Midshires
2 Nationwide Building Society
2 Icesave

Best online savings account
1 Icesave
2 Nationwide Building Society
3 ING Direct

Best unit trust/OEIC provider: Fidelity
Fidelity emerged top of our readers’ poll as the best provider of open-ended funds. Richard Wastcoat, UK managing director of Fidelity International commented that ‘We are constantly striving to attain and maintain high standards of service and to offer top-quality products to investors, so it is satisfying to know that we are achieving these goals and are considered to be the best provider of products and services.

‘We have a broad range of single strategy, UK-domiciled funds, which cover all the main asset classes . We have also developed a range of multi-manager funds, recognising that many investors, and indeed financial advisers, would prefer to let investment professionals pick funds for them. We now have five funds in our UK range, having launched the MultiManager Distribution Fund last year. We have also increased our range of funds of funds to include a multi-asset fund, which invests in equities, fixed income, property securities, commodities and cash.’

Wastcoat adds, ‘Another area we have started to develop is that of retirement solutions. Fidelity has recognised that much needs to be done in the UK in the form of education and in producing innovative products that are more in line with today’s retirement landscape, including a new website, www.rewritingretirement.co.uk, which has a wealth of information to help raise awareness of the amount of money required to fund retirement. We have also recently launched a range of seven retirement funds that have aged-based asset allocation and are designed to not only help people save for their retirement but provide a reasonable level of starting and rising income, and increasing capital throughout retirement years.’

Best investment trust provider: Baillie Gifford and JPMorgan
The first of this year’s awards to have joint winners is best investment trust provider, which is shared by Baillie Gifford and JPMorgan. Robert O’Riordan, investment trust development manager at Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford, says that ‘This award reflects the fact that Baillie Gifford is managing a range of clearly differentiated global trusts with clear investment objectives. These global portfolios are generally seen as ideal long term savings vehicles, whether that be within a savings plan or a pension or simply as direct holdings, and we can provide investors with all three of those options.
‘It is reassuring to know that growing numbers of private investors are discovering the attraction of investment trusts and realising that the range of trusts under our stewardship can provide them with a solid base for their long-term savings.’

By contrast, JPMorgan is now the largest manager of investment trust portfolios. David Barron (pictured), JPMorgan’s head of investment trusts says that ‘I think the award is a measure of the breadth of our range. With 19 investment trusts, it is the broadest offering in the sector. Not only that, but the consistency of performance across the range is very strong. Investors know that when they see a trust that is connected with us that, by and large, it will perform.’

‘We have done a lot to improve the information that we provide to investors. We like having private investors. These are great funds for private investors and we would like more of them.’

Best sharedealing service: Hargreaves Lansdown
Not only has Hargreaves Lansdown created headlines with its recent high-profile flotation, the company has also won our Readers’ Award for best sharedealing service, for its combination of cost-effective dealing backed up by the wide range of support services that are not generally available to customers of execution-only dealing services.

Hargreaves Lansdown’s David Rawlings explains that ‘Clearly, we have to be very competitive on price and at £9.95 a deal we are. But these days pretty much everyone in the sharedealing market is competitive on price, so we try to go a bit deeper than that. We realised some time ago that clients want other things besides cheap dealing.
‘So we make available our in-house research from Richard Hunter (pictured) on shares and Mark Dampier on investment funds.’

Rawlings points out that ‘We don’t force everybody to trade online either. They can deal in any way they choose â“ online, by telephone or by post. And another key part of the service we offer is that our dealers are all fully qualified and there to support dealing for the customer.

‘That is a key element of what we offer. The people who are at the end of the phone or executing your orders are not customer service agents, they are qualified dealers. Everybody understands the market and knows what they’re talking about. Sharedealing at Hargreaves Lansdown gives you the best of both worlds: low-cost dealing backed up by knowledgeable and professional staff.’

Best pension provider: Prudential and Standard Life
Alistair Hardie (pictured left), product marketing manager at Standard Life says the award is a fantastic endorsement of Standard Life’s pension product range. ‘I would suggest that the reason we have received this award is due to a combination of our investment performance, a level of customer service and the fact that both our written and verbal communication with customers is meeting their needs,’ he adds.

‘Winning the award sends the message that we are doing well, but there is always room to develop and Standard Life certainly won’t be resting on its laurels in this area.’
Standard Life offers a comprehensive range of pension products to help you plan for, and to support you through, your retirement. This includes self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), personal pension plans, stakeholder pensions, company pension schemes and annuities.

Gary Shaughnessy (pictured right), managing director of retail life and pensions at Prudential, says, ‘Having a range of good pension products to choose from is vital to securing a sufficient level of income for people in their retirement, which is why we pride ourselves not only on the range of information and education aides we provide, but also in providing retirement solutions that offer flexibility and extensive fund choice.’

Best SIPP provider: Hargreaves Lansdown
As well as winning the sharedealing service award, Hargreaves Lansdown came top of our readers’ poll for best SIPP provider. The group’s head of pensions, Tom McPhail, admits that ‘It is gratifying to receive this award because we have worked very hard at developing our SIPP product as a low-cost service that enables people to take advantage of a very flexible form of pension investing.’

Hargreaves Lansdown offers a range of investment services to private investors, covering investment funds and sharedealing as well as its SIPP. McPhail points out that ‘Our SIPP service has been developed from our Vantage trading platform and, as such, it is designed to develop all of the core elements of a SIPP. So clients can invest in funds, carry out equity trading, hold cash and so on. It doesn’t include commercial property but it is not intended to. It is aimed at the mass market of investors who want to take advantage of the SIPP rules.

‘It is designed as an execution-only service that is primarily used by people who are running their own SIPP portfolios. And the key thing is that it is simple and easy to use. Our approach is best summed up by our corporate banner â“ best information, best service, best prices. SIPP investors have the benefit of all of the Hargreaves Lansdown research resources online. They can access investment research, buy and sell investments and there is a range of other support services as well.’

Best discretionary wealth manager: UBS
Best discretionary wealth manager, according to your votes, is the wealth management arm of international banking giant UBS. Duncan Carmichael-Jack, of UBS Wealth Management, explains that ‘Our client accounts are based on a combination of top-down asset allocation, where, for example, we decide whether we are going to underweight or overweight UK equities, and bottom up stock picking where we match that to our clients’ individual needs.

‘Our portfolios are based on our house view, but tailored to meet the needs of the individual client. We have a monthly meeting, chaired by Gareth Lewis, which sets out our top-down asset allocation. Most accounts are benchmarked against the APCIMS Private Client Indices or the FTSE All Share. We run a series of in-house model portfolios, covering high, medium and low risk, and also growth and income, and a balance of the two.’

Carmichael-Jack stresses that ‘There is no set minimum for a discretionary managed portfolio, but we use £250,000 as a guide. Our portfolios are, in the main, directly invested, although we will use pooled investments to get a broad exposure in specialist areas, such as the Far East or UK small caps.’

He points out that ‘Reporting is very much client driven. We send out six-monthly performance statements, although a lot of clients ask for these quarterly. But we also offer an online valuation service so that clients can download a valuation whenever they wish.’

Carmichael-Jack says that ‘We look after a very broad range of portfolios. Quite a few of our clients have ethical portfolios, where we are screening out particular areas, and we are doing an increasing amount of pension business, particularly SIPPs, where we find investors want to take more control over their pension planning.’

Best cash ISA provider: Kent Reliance Building Society and Nationwide Building Society
Kent Reliance offers two cash ISAs: a direct variable mini cash ISA available through its head office, and a variable rate mini cash ISA, which is a passbook-based account.

Mike Lazenby (pictured left), chief executive of Kent Reliance, comments, ‘Kent Reliance is delighted to be recognised for our range of ISA products, which are a consequence not only of competitive pricing, but also of quality and delivery.’
Tim Hughes (pictured right), head of savings at Nationwide, says, ‘In December 2006, we extended our cash ISA range to offer customers more ways to save tax free and receive a very competitive rate with a fixed rate ISA bond.’

Nationwide currently offers a range of cash ISA options for savers, including a members’ ISA bond and one and two-year fixed rate ISA bonds. The society also has an instant access ISA, which is a tax-free passbook account.

Best stocks and shares ISA provider: Alliance Trust
Claudia Philips, managing director of investment dealing at Alliance Trust, says the award acknowledges all the hard work the organisation has put into its cost-efficient, easy-to-use account. ‘We are delighted to win this award, obviously because we were selected by the readers,’ she says. ‘Unlike many other providers in the market, we have no set-up or annual management charges with our account, it’s really a pay-as-you-go offering as the charges are basically transactional. However, we also ensure that we provide a high standard of customer service to complement our plans.’

She continues, ‘I am pleased that we have won as it shows that all the time and effort we have put into developing our stocks and shares ISA has been worth it. It also proves that the level of online access that we offer and the fact that users pay as they go is well received among those in the market.’

Alliance Trust’s self-select ISA gives access to over 1,500 listed securities, including equities, fixed interest securities, open-ended investment companies (OEICS), unit trusts and exchange traded funds. There are no set-up fees or annual plan charges users only pay for the transactions carried out through the account. Alliance Trusts allows account holders to trade online, by telephone or by post.

Philips adds, ‘Online, the user has one account that they can use for all the plans they hold with us, including ISAs, self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs), investment plans and so on. They can use this cost efficiently and easily. Such features are obviously important to WI readers, which is why we have won this award.’

Best property finance provider: Nationwide Building Society
The fact that Nationwide is a building society and is free to concentrate on its customers is one of the reasons for its success in this year’s awards, according to Matthew Carter, director of savings and mortgages at the society. ‘As a mutual building society we do not have any shareholders to please, which means we can focus solely on our members,’ he explains. ‘This allows us to offer a standard variable mortgage rate around 50 basis points below most of the market, as well as some of the most competitive deals combined with some of the lowest fees and charges.’

As Carter indicates, Nationwide offers a range of mortgage deals to suit borrowers of all shapes and sizes. This includes three main types: variable-rate, fixed-rate and tracker mortgages. The building society also offers a variety of flexible features as standard, such as daily interest calculation, the ability to make underpayments, overpayments and take payment holidays and free mortgage payment protection insurance for three months.

Nationwide continues to service its members even after they have taken out a mortgage, with additional borrowing options if you need some extra cash for home improvements, for example. Its further advance option allows borrowers to make an additional lump sum borrowing and the flexible advance option provides the ability to draw on the money as and when you need it.

Carter adds, ‘We aim to reward our existing customers for their loyalty. Furthermore, we don’t impose a higher lending charge for customers looking to borrow over 90 per cent loan to value.’

Best children’s investment provider: F&C
The readers of What Investment have voted F&C the best children’s investment provider in recognition of its market-leading child trust fund (CTF) account.

Jason Hollands, spokesperson for F&C, says, ‘We think the F&C CTF stands out on three grounds: choice, performance and charges. The volume in the CTF market has been dominated by stakeholder plans that are much the same, generally being index trackers charging 1.5 per cent annual management charges. In contrast, our plan is based around a choice of some 14 options â“ 13 of which are investment trust companies. These offer parents a wide range of investment strategies, much greater diversity of opportunities and, in many cases, costs significantly below those of stakeholder funds.’

The F&C account is the only CTF to offer access to investment trusts, providing a low-cost way to diversify your portfolio into global stock markets. Hollands adds, ‘Our trusts have dominated the performance tables of CTFs since launch, demonstrating some of the key strengths of investment trusts. These are ideal for children’s savings schemes, with the global trusts such as Foreign & Colonial, British Assets Trust and F&C Global Smaller Companies giving even the very small saver the opportunity to have a highly diversified portfolio.’

For those children born before the introduction of CTFs, F&C also offers a children’s investment plan to help build a nest egg for school fees, university tuition, or perhaps even a deposit on a first home. The plan acts as a wrapper for the investment trusts you choose to put money into and you can either designate the plan for the child or set up a bare trust.

Best savings account: Birmingham Midshires
The title of best savings account has been awarded to Birmingham Midshires.
The bank is the result of an amalgamation of approximately 50 building societies over a period of nearly 160 years. It became part of the Halifax Group in April 1999 and is now the largest private employer in the city of Wolverhampton, where it is based.

It offers online, telephone and postal savings accounts with a wide range of features and rates to suit savers’ needs. Its secure internet accounts offer 24-hour access, seven days a week, as do Birmingham Midshires’ telephone savings accounts. You also have the choice to speak to an operator on the phone, or to use the bank’s 24-hour automated telephone banking service. This is possible with any of the easy access, fixed-rate bonds, guaranteed equity bonds or ISAs offered by Birmingham Midshires. The bank also has a range of specially designed postal savings accounts, available as an ISA or as an easy access account.

Richard Brown, head of savings products at the bank, says, ‘BM is one of the UK’s leading direct savings providers and we provide a range of products to suit all types of needs. This includes instant access and fixed-interest accounts, as well as guaranteed bonds.

‘We also provide access over the phone, online or through the post. Our direct savings account is one of the most attractive on the market at 5.75 per cent. In addition, we have a very competitive internet account â“ the BM Websaver, which has a rate of 5.9 per cent.’

Best online savings account: Icesave
Icesave has topped the best online savings account category this year.
Mark Sismey-Durrant, managing director of Icesave, says, ‘The success of Icesave in a highly competitive savings market shows that there is still a need for a clear, transparent account with a consistently competitive interest rate.’

This easy access online savings account is open to UK residents over the age of 18. A minimum of £250 is required to open the account and the minimum withdrawal is £100. The maximum deposit permitted is £1 million. The gross annual equivalent rate of interest (AER) is guaranteed to exceed the Bank of England Base Rate by at least 0.25 per cent until October 2009. After that, the rate will not drop below the base rate before 1 October 2011. Customers can choose to have interest paid annually or monthly and there is no compulsory notice period.

Icesave has total deposits of £3 billion and over 80,000 account holders as at 21 May 2007. It is owned by Landsbanki, the national bank of Iceland, which currently operates branches in London and Amsterdam.

Sismey-Durrant continues, ‘We aim to remain in the best buy tables but without any hidden catches, such as penalties for withdrawals, and without withdrawing our high rates after a limited period. Our guarantee to at least equal the Bank of England Base Rate until 1 October 2011 means our customers don’t have to constantly shop around to get good returns on their savings. This means Icesave is an ideal product for busy, discerning people who don’t have the time to keep moving their money around. We don’t want any customer to ever regret opening an Icesave account.’

This article is from the July 2007 issue of What Investment.