What are your thoughts on Moneyfarm?

Edit : Please disregard these calculations below! an error was made (just leaving for consistency of thread)


I was thinking about posting my experience here, so this has prompted me to do so.

I invested with Moneyfarm for a cashback bung about 18 months ago I think. After reviewing it's performance this month - I'm disappointed. My settings were geared to the highest level of risk exposure, so being under the fee-paying threshold (at the time, it's changed now) I expected performance perhaps broadly comparable to a low cost index fund such as Vanguard Lifestrategy 60 or 80.

As a rough idea to compare:

VWRL (100% global equities) in that period returned about 10%

Vanguard 80 in that period returned about 7%.

Moneyfarm 'highest risk' returned about 1.5%.

I'd have to do the analysis to work out exactly why (I can't be jaffed TBH), but given the emails they were sending me in the intervening period, my strong suspicion is they were attempting to be a bit too clever in tweaking allocations and especially in currency hedging in an attempt to 'beat' the effects of Brexit. This may have backfired.

Note also that with the fee structure at the time I was paying a 0% fee to moneyfarm for the first £10k (my total investment was under £10k so I paid zero directly to them). Their fee structure now means that you will pay 0.7% of your investment on any amount (with various introductory offers available no doubt).

In every other respect I'd recommend them (customer service, platform, payment of bungs etc), but I've personally disinvested even though I'm entitled to fee-free investment. 


Edit: The best investments I've ever made personally (not advice) is to open a low-cost share dealing account (e.g Halifax) and buy and hold low cost index funds/ETF's. Anything else introduces more middlemen, cost, and risk than is strictly necessary IMV. 

Edit2: Interesting article on their performance here . One quote: "The team recently increased exposure to sterling, primarily through hedged products. “We are cautious about adding hedged ETFs at every opportunity because of the costs you incur, and over the long-term it’s not clear how much benefit you derive. But amid political situations such as we have in the UK at the moment it seems prudent"

I just can't help concluding from my brief dalliance that robo-investment might be the new form of active fund managers coming back in to earn their cash through being 'active' with passive shares to the detriment of investors, whilst charging of course for the privilege. No doubt one soon will trumpet their 'overperformance' and investors will flock to the robo-investor flavour of the month only to see it then underperform, whilst of course they still take their fee. Sound familiar?