With-profits investors miffed

Some 2.4 million investors are planning to pull out of with-profits investments, as dissatisfaction in the sector grows.

Some 64 per cent of investors with with-profits investments are unhappy with their performance, and 28 per cent are very unhappy.

However, 65 per cent of investors will stick with their with-profits investments, while 25 per cent are planning to stop, new research from investment management company Managing Partners Limited (MPL) reveals.

Just 30 per cent of investors were backing with-profits.

This compares with last year's poll that revealed 37 per cent of with-profits investors were happy with performance.

Jeremy Leach, managing director of MPL, said: "Another year of volatile stock markets is making it difficult for with-profits to deliver decent returns.

"Investors are leaving with-profits in their droves, especially those who are seeing their endowments fall short of repaying investors’ mortgages.

"But this doesn’t mean investors have lost their appetite for the steady, predictable returns that with profits once offered, it is just that with-profits has failed to deliver.

"It is no surprise that only three per cent of those people with these products are very happy with their performance."