I was wondering if members would like to attend a group day out in London interviewing a shortlist of three brokers.
The problem, as I hear it from a well informed forum member is that there is a dearth of UK brokers willing to deal on behalf of US persons. I know there are current work arounds, which have some limitations. We are not going to be able to replace Fidelity US with a straight equivalent. But there are - or were last time I did this - a number of private banks and global asset management houses who will offer execution-only dealing, but they don't advertise this and they have account minimums. Now I know you fellows are not used to paying dealing commissions nor much in annual fees. Bear in mind that the dealing costs in ETFs are not disclosed in the OCF. Vanguard and
https://www.trackingdifferences.com/ have good notes on this, - so they exist but you tend to not see them. Anyway, point is, an XO client pays dealing and acting as a group we have a powerful negotiating position to bring these down. My target would be 0.2% to 0.3%, if you have a portfolio of direct securities, otherwise less of course if you have ETFs and don't trade.
For me this would be a dry run for a multi-family investment company. I am interested to see how much we can drive them down, given the combined assets. It might end up as a private deal just for UK-Yankee forum members (with a triage on the front end for compliance).
Bear in mind there's about two months of work first to survey everybody and come out with a shortlist. Then we all meet in London and interview them. It should be fun.
Poll
