Sipp providers are facing greater scrutiny by advisers. Chart 3 shows a poll by Liberty Sipp showing adviser opinion on providers, with all highlighting a need for greater transparency on fees. However, 63 per cent said they are likely to direct more business towards Sipp providers, a fact reflected in our survey. On the whole, business is still on an upward trajectory.
On average, the operators in Table 2 saw 10 per cent growth in their total number of plans and 15 per cent rise in total assets under management since our survey in April. Some notable companies include Ascentric, which reported a 38.8 per cent rise in assets under management from £1.08bn to £1.5bn, and Aviva, which rose by 48.8 per cent from £853m to almost £1.3bn.
In terms of total assets under management, the headline figure of this survey compared with April’s is slightly lower at £101.8bn, down 1 per cent. However, Aegon not including some of its plans had an impact on overall data – to the tune of more than 250,000 Sipps and £11.3bn in assets under management – so data for the wider industry is actually far more positive. Taking only those that provided data in the previous survey and this one, total assets under management rose from £85bn to £98bn, a jump of 14 per cent.
Having asked providers to detail the breakdown of their Sipps into simple, mid-range and full-range, it is possible to get an idea of the types of business being transacted. Some did this more enthusiastically than others – the Pointon York Individual Sipp, for example, showed 2,779 simple Sipps, 521 mid-range and 2,846 full-range – while other providers plumped for popping everything in the mid-range or full category instead. Some providers said they could not break down their Sipps into these categories and only provided a total figure.
Nevertheless, the data start to give an interesting idea of what the Sipp market looks like, with the vast majority in the mid-range category. The self-reported data from providers does not entirely match up with Suffolk Life’s analysis, which looks at Money Management data alongside other published information. Its view instead suggests:
• 299,000 simple Sipps with total assets of £28bn and an average plan size of £93,000;
• 572,000 mid-range Sipps with total assets of £46.8bn and an average plan size of £82,000;
• 211,000 full-range Sipps with total assets of £54.8bn and an average plan size of £260,000.
Considering the averages quoted in the Table can also give some insight as to how Sipps are being used. The overall average Sipp value is £247,755, some £20,182 higher than our previous survey. Some figures are to be expected – a low average from platform-based Hargreaves Lansdown at £69,000 for example, or a high average of £465,000 from Rathbone – but others are a little more incongruous. Some full-range Sipp providers that might be expected to have relatively high averages have got rather low values – for example, Carey Pensions at £104,604 and Brooklands Trustees at £100,000. Carey said this was down to its inclusion of simpler Sipps and group Sipps, which, being employer-sponsored, could technically come in with zero value.
