Replacement for Campbell O’Connor

Pieface

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Hi,
I have a nominee account with Campbell O’Connor which I am charged €40 annually as it holds 2 US stocks. One of the US stocks is from an Employee share scheme and each year when the stocks mature I get them transferred to this nominee account. I am charged €50 each time the transfer is made. So my total annual charge is €90. I read Cantor Fitzgerald‘s charges and I don’t understand them. Please could you recommend stockbrokers that I move my 2 stocks to, preferably with lower costs but reasonably safe too. Thanks.
 
I have had an account with Campbell O'Connor for over 20 years. I have about £80k sitting to my credit in a Sterling account with them.

I buy and sell occasionally and I have always received a share certificate when I make a purchase. I am charged .5% in fees total per purchase and .5% U.K. Stamp duty on purchases. There is no charge for providing the share certificate to me and no charge to me when I send them the share certificate on a sale. I am charged a flat £50 fee on all sales.

I am not charged an account maintenance fee per annum.


I have just had a look at Cantor Fitzgeralds fees. There is an account maintenance fee of .75% per annum. Commission charges considerably higher. (I don't really understand their fee structure so if someone could explain it to me it would be great). It appears that I will also be charged for leaving money with them. I will also be charged every time I receive or send them a share certificate.

I cannot see how I can transfer my account to Cantor Fitzgerald and make money on trades with their fees/costs.

If anyone has done some of the groundwork on this I would love to hear their views and recommendations.
 
Perhaps you could consider moving the GBP to an account in Ulster NI?? Then use a GB based stockbroker. You can find some with low commissions, but you will find it difficult to find someone to deal with in certificated form. They all tend to use nominee a/c.
 
Also...I purchase shares that pay high dividends. How do online brokers deal with these dividends if paid in to a nominee account and is there a charge for dealing with dividends.
 
If a person has 10 x €35k transactions per annum. Is this .9% fee calculated on the €350,000 total amount of deals?

Is this considered low cost?

No - there is no transactional cost according to the poster. So those would be free. What is charged is an annualised charge of the average value in your account. Which would be €3,150 per annum on your €350k portfolio (or €262 per month). That seems high to me and I wondered if it should read as .09% rather than .9% (9bp would seem closer to normal than 90bp).

So I went to their site to check - but it's a complete disaster. Takes about 5 mins to load each page - so every time I click a link it takes another 5 mins. I've tried it on Chrome and IE. Tried on my desktop and mobile - same result. Anyway, what I found....

It is .9% - so pretty hefty. It is subject to a €400 pa minimum. They do exclude any Davy's funds from the calculation of value so essentially a free ride with the in-house assets. It is charged twice a year based on the value at a point in time rather than average value.

However - the "no transaction" fee doesn't apply to "non Irish and non UK" securities. So any transactions involving non Irish / UK shares, ETF's, bonds or options incur a .06% fee plus €25 settlement charge.

There are also standard charges which apply to all Davys accounts- the most relevant probably being €80 to lodge a physical certificate into your account and €30 per instruction to move assets from your account (electronically I assume)
 
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What is charged is an annualised charge of the average value in your account. Which would be €3,150 per annum on your €350k portfolio (or €262 per month).

So if I were to purchase €35k of shares I would normally be charged a commission of 1%. So that's €350. If two days later I were to sell these shares I would normally be charged 1% so another €350. So €700.

Therefore 10 trades a year, buying and selling, would with most brokers cost me 10 x €350 = €3500. With the .9% fee charged by Davy it would cost me less. €3150.

Am I calculating this right?

I understand that these are self trades. I am given a platform to trade on. I do the buying and the selling myself. If I need to contact Davy by phone I believe there is a €100 charge?

Doe anyone know if the Davy platform allows me to trade shares at live prices?
 
So if I were to purchase €35k of shares I would normally be charged a commission of 1%. So that's €350. If two days later I were to sell these shares I would normally be charged 1% so another €350. So €700.

Therefore 10 trades a year, buying and selling, would with most brokers cost me 10 x €350 = €3500. With the .9% fee charged by Davy it would cost me less. €3150.

Am I calculating this right?

I think so - as long as you are trading UK / Irish assets.

But I can do better if you like. According to their fees and charges page (you'll have to verify - there's no way I'm trying to open that again), they calculate portfolio value twice a year (I think end May and end November or similar) and then charge the .9% fee at end of the following month. So, if you bought and sold in-between as much as you want but closed off positions before the calculation date, you'd only be charged the minimum €400pa (actually that would mean you have just over €44k in the account and still be at the minimum.
 
Claris. You might clarify if the execution only trades are live prices. No point in getting delayed prices.
To be fair, for a Campbell O’Connor customer interested in a personal CREST account (the context of this thread), live prices probably aren’t that important, you’ll tend to be holding for years so a few cents means little.


Though FWIW DeGiro have a fee comparison of their site which seems accurate - https://www.degiro.ie/fees/compare-brokers/
 
I have been distracted by other issues and haven't had time to look at this.

I tend to keep shares in certs where I can. But I have two shareholdings in my Crest account which could be in share certs so the first thing I should do is to get them transferred to certs.

The others are long term holdings. I rarely trade.

I don't want to pay 0.9% a year for someone to hold a Crest Account. Cheap or free dealing is of no interest to me.

I looked at DeGiro and can't figure out how much they charge for holding my shares for me if I don't trade?

Brendan
 
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It is .9% - so pretty hefty. It is subject to a €400 pa minimum. They do exclude any Davy's funds from the calculation of value so essentially a free ride with the in-house assets. It is charged twice a year based on the value at a point in time rather than average value.

In my case I hold a specific share to get the high dividend. In between ex dividend dates I also trade the share. I only take my profits out of my account.

So I open an account with €60k and purchase my share. I then trade this share 6 times throughout the year. Basically leaving a hard core €60k in my account. What are my charges likely to be.

Davy Select present a very competitive offering at 0.9% per annum with zero trading commissions

If this .9% is charged twice yearly then surely it's not .9% per annum?
 
I signed on to DeGiro but am a little unsure about the security side of things as I'd much prefer to have the share certificates in my hand.

Hi Opus

Only Irish and UK companies issue share certificates.

If you want to buy shares outside these countries, you will have to use some form of nominee holding.

If you have Irish shares in a Crest Account with Campbell O'Connor, ask them to convert them into share certificates.

Brendan
 
Hi all,

Two quick questions - does anyone here actually use DeGiro just to buy and sell shares? (Well more just buy shares).

And I presume Campbell and O'Connor won't do bed and breakfast transactions either if they are won't buy and sell shares at this point?

By the by, I checked Davy for a transaction - it's 1.65% with a €100 minimum so to keep it reasonable you'd need a transaction of around €6,000 to get down to the 1.65% level.
Oh and if you want a cert it's another €37. But at least it's an option - can anyone do any better on getting the share certificate as part of the share transaction?

Actually a third question - if you hold shares in DeGiro and you get paid a dividend, is tax deducted or do you declare it yourself??

Best,

Opus 2018.
 
Hi Brendan,

Yes it is. However should you not be including the annual maintenance fee of €80 as part of the cost assuming one transaction? The cost of the transaction is €14.99 plus the cost of transferring the cert to paper form.
Best,

Opus 2018.
 
Having looked at everything in a bit of detail over the last few years since the purely online/broking only brokers have come along, DeGiro are by far the best value in terms of fees for execution only and custody and there aren't any hidden costs like the financial advisors. The issues come in so far as they are really just a transaction and custody specialists for individuals. They don't even really market to corporate, financial advisors, brokers, pension trustees etc. They also don't/won't provide advice - be it tax, pension or investment or more general advice. They have in some ways truly democratised investing (with the help of ETFs).

If you are moving from Campbell O'Connor execution only and paying the annual fee of €50, the safe custody fee of €20/€40/€60/€80/€100+ whatever it is depending on the size of the portfolio of shares, in addition to any buying and selling commissions then it makes sense to move to DeGiro. The likelihood is however you will probably need some guidance on issues at some point even if these issues may be small and so for these purposes it may be best to move to some sort of genuine financial adviser (who may operate their own brokerage or, as more and more are doing, they make just farm out the actual brokerage and custody to another party like DeGiro)

If they are in 18 countries they are obviously well capitalised and organised. They don't have a huge cost base and actually make revenues unlike someone like Robinhood in the US so even if worse comes to worst they'll just be bolted on to a large bank of some sort or be taken over by Revlout or Transferwise etc as they are of significant scale. There is always a counterparty risk involved but I don't think having a piece of paper is going to save anyone's bacon in this day and age unfortunately nor has it in the past be it with W & R Murrogh, Custom House Capital, Bloxhams or anyone else.

The other alternative is keeping cash under your mattress.

John
 
You can hold GSK shares in certificate form.
Thanks for answering part of the question. Good to know that I can hold shares in certificate form through Davy Stockbrokers.

If you know, can you give me an answer to the second part of my question.

If I purchase £75k of GSK in certificate form to hold.What will my costs be and will there be ongoing yearly costs associated with having opened an account with you to buy these in the first place.
 
Hi abc_xyz,

Many thanks for the answer on Degiro!

By the way Laramie, you should note there is an extra charge for getting the share certificate for GSK, but given the scale of the trade. it's not that much in the whole scheme of things - about €37 I think but it may be put aside if you're buying that amount of shares.

Best,

Opus 2018.
 
By the way Laramie, you should note there is an extra charge for getting the share certificate for GSK, but given the scale of the trade. it's not that much in the whole scheme of things - about €37 I think but it may be put aside if you're buying that amount of shares.
Yes. I think I read somewhere that if the value of the share certificate is over €25k there is no charge. This in itself is strange. Why would the value of a share certificate impact on the admin cost?

Hopefully someone from DavySelect might come back to this thread.
 
Thanks for answering part of the question. Good to know that I can hold shares in certificate form through Davy Stockbrokers.

If you know, can you give me an answer to the second part of my question.

If I purchase £75k of GSK in certificate form to hold.What will my costs be and will there be ongoing yearly costs associated with having opened an account with you to buy these in the first place.

Just to check - if you hold the share certificates, then you have no ongoing relationship with Davy. Much like the deeds for a house, once they are in your possession they become your responsibility and if you wanted to sell, you could go to any broker that would take the business and give them the certs to sell. There should be no ongoing costs but you wouldn't have an account to easily buy or sell the shares either.
 
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