Kerry Nelson, director of Nexus IFA
"It’s easy to dismiss Standard Life as monolithic, but they run some good funds. They’re also very good at nurturing funds internally first, and then releasing them to the retail market – that’s what they did with GARS, which is a fund I use as an underpin." "I think Karen Robertson’s UK Equity High Income fund is very consistent and Harry Nimmo’s funds have been great performers. I particularly like the idea of his Global Smaller Companies fund, which has just launched. The UK Smaller Companies sector can be constraining, so giving it a global reach is important."
James Brown, Winterflood Securities
"Standard Life are a big, well-resourced investment house. They have a stable of good investment trusts, but they’re not a huge staple of their assets under management compared to their competitors. Harry Nimmo, who runs the Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust, has been an excellent performer."
"The Standard Life Euro Private Equity Trust is their largest investment trust, and has long-term strong performance. It looks cheap at the moment on a 40 per cent discount. The manager is very close to the private equity industry."
"Their Property Income Trust has a yield of 7 per cent, which is well covered – that makes it stand apart from its peers."
Scott Grant, Clear Financial Advice
"I've not placed a client with Standard Life for over a year, so haven’t looked at their recent performance. My research is 99 per cent qualitative. Standard Life never quite wins out on charges, or with risk/return portfolios."
Patrick Connolly, head of communications, AWD Chase de Vere
"I think they became a little too reliant on GARS as it started taking in bucket loads of money. However, much of that euphoria has died off as advisers and clients didn’t want to be over-exposed and many probably realised that they didn’t fully understand how GARS works.""Standard Life has been putting some emphasis behind its Myfolio range of portfolios. We haven’t used these but they do have merit for some clients, especially as more advisers and clients are looking for all-in-one solutions."
"We have used Standard Life for UK equity investments and to a lesser degree ethical funds in the past, but the performance on these has been disappointing and we are reluctant to invest more money at present."