Brooks Macdonald Reviews 24

Spoke to one of their guys after selling my printing business. They told me to put everything into their very expensive BPS service, which was the opposite of the advice I got at other wealth managers. Grifters.

Date of experience: February 06, 2025

My experience of BM far surpasses my expectations of a wealth manager. The IM is extremely experienced, completely understands our priorities and has a team around him to ensure our financial objectives are met. With previous DFMs we have dealt with in the past, we felt we were working harder than our investments and the IM. Having just met with our IM it is clear we have someone who has our best interests at the heart of every investment decision made.

Date of experience: February 25, 2025

I have found Brooks MacDonald to be very supportive of my desires in relation to a pension investment. They treat me with respect and have served me well over the years.

Date of experience: February 23, 2025

Re posting my review as Brooks Macdonald seems to have had it taken down...

Poor client service - never pick up the phone
High fees for doing nothing - charge more than competitors
Average investment performance

Date of experience: February 05, 2025

I cannot speak highly enough of the advice and service I have had at Brooks MacDonald. Questions have been answered in a clear and concise way. I have always had excellent advice and all suggestions have been clearly explained. It has always been a pleasure to meet with my advisor.

Date of experience: February 17, 2025

As a rule, I do not generally feed back on matters of finance. However, I am genuinely surprised to read negative reports about BM, but then perhaps others are not as fortunate as myself in having an excellent advisor like Leanne Harvey. She has shown patience and an excellent ability to communicate financial information - the pros and cons of financial options, when individuals and other institutions have been less than helpful or plain silent!

Date of experience: January 16, 2025

Very detailed and understandable data presented by Leanne.

Date of experience: February 06, 2025

I have been with BM for many years, most recently liaising with Leanne Harvey who has offered a very efficient service with sound advice, she has taken time to explain things in detail and as always responds to any query I may have with a timely detailed response.

Date of experience: February 06, 2025

I have been a client of BM for more years than I can remember and am frankly shocked at the negative reviews. I have had nothing but a great service from them, particularly David Birden who has helped me through the transition to using my pension pot and planning for my retirement.
Investment returns have been good given my risk profile, and the advice given has always been appropriate and well thought through.

Date of experience: February 04, 2025

My financial advisor at Brooks McDonald is very efficient, friendly and knowledgable and also gives constructive advice. I am very pleased with the service I have received since becoming a client of theirs.

Date of experience: September 26, 2024

Awful company!
Wealth 'adviser' was very pushy trying to get me to invest ALL my money and when I didn't was moody and obviously put out. Decided to go it alone because I just didn't want to see him again.

Had trouble getting my money out. They were very slow paying a pension draw down. I'm going to withdraw all my funds next year. Better to keep it under my mattress!!

Date of experience: January 09, 2025

I find the team at Brooks Macdonald extremely knowledgeable and competent. My financial advisor ((Eren Kuzubasoglu) is a man I can trust and I rely on him to help me navigate troubled financial waters. He takes the time to explain various options and offers balanced advice tailored to my individual situation. I trust Eren’s judgment implicitly. I would not hesitate to recommend this company.

Date of experience: February 02, 2025

Most of their clients come via IFA ‘s , if yours recommends them tell your IFA to keep looking. I had £4m of cash to invest so did a fair amount of due diligence, including meeting the teams in Manchester and London. They are pleasant people but fail on the most basic tasks. The first warning was that instead of a presentation on investment options I had asked for I was sent their internal sales update , clients gained / clients lost / average investment etc. Not a good sign as if they can’t keep their own confidental data to themselves then what priority do they put on clients? I decided on a very basic product , a low yield UK government gilt (as it’s tax efficient). All they had to do was buy it and hold to maturity. I bought the same gilt through the Hargrives Lansdown app. This has no fees and works out cheaper. Today was the maturity date and HL paid in full first thing in the morning. I’m still waiting for my money from BM. I had bills to pay which I can now not. I also missed out on reinventing the balance at a good rate and I still have no clue where my money is. Bottom line avoid BM use HL , they are cheaper and better
UPDATE - about a week after I posted this review I got a call from Rob Slater apologising, saying they take reviews very seriously and that someone would be in touch - since then I have heard nothing. I’m guessing the only action taken was to solicit a load of 5* reviews from their satisfied customers as a flurry seem to have appeared since I posted mine.
Further update - I got a request from Trustpilot on 19th April saying BM had asked for further info , and if not submitted they may delete my review as fake - strange as they already have all my contact details - have upheld my complaint and indeed have paid compensation. Presumably not a normal course of action for a fake review.

Date of experience: January 31, 2025

Don't care about their smaller customers, reviewed our mps product after the 3 year period our money had not grown in value yet huge amount of fees had been incurred. Very disappointing as this is our retirement money. Also impossible to get hold of anyone in the company.

Date of experience: July 17, 2024

Have been advised by Harmy Bains since 2018 and very happy. Harmy understands my individual needs and has always given advice relevant to me. He even reins in my risk appetite! I’m a relative newcomer to BM (about 2 years) and very happy with the team and execution so far.

Date of experience: September 12, 2024

Recently received sound advice regarding my savings from their Financial Planning Director. Will continue to use and recommend.

Date of experience: August 26, 2024

Date of experience: September 03, 2024

I would not recommend this company to manage pension or other funds. I paid for their discretionary management service from mid-2020 to look after my cash pension fund. The total gain they achieved on the funds entrusted to them, in a medium risk portfolio, was under 5% over c 41 months - certainly less than inflation (and below the comparatives). It was particularly galling that at the end of 2021, following the post-covid ‘bounce’ in stock markets, the portfolio was showing a gain of around 20%. However, over the ensuing c 20 months Brooks MacDonald allowed this gain to simply drain away – I would say through inaction. Despite paying their fees to manage the portfolio there was no effort to protect the gain and in reality very little action of any sort. The fees I paid to them over 40+ months substantially exceed the gain achieved on the portfolio. This has seriously impacted on the ability of my pension fund to meet my (family’s) future needs. I moved my funds away from this company towards the end of last year. I wrote to the company to complain but was, as expected, ‘fobbed off’. In my opinion the problem is that the company lacks a commercial edge – the manager dealing with my funds seemed completely incapable of understanding how to protect a portfolio gain and seemed quite relaxed to see the whole of this gain wiped out.
19.04.25: Brooks MacDonald finally responded to this review at the end of February 2025 - 18 months after it was submitted! In their response they stated that somebody would contact me and, as at April 2025, I have heard nothing. This morning I have received a message from Trustpilot saying:

"You’ve written a review for Brooks MacDonald, and they’ve asked for more details to better understand your experience. If you provide some extra information within 3 days, it’ll help them recognize your experience and respond. If we don’t hear from you, the company may not be able to recognize your review as genuine."

This strikes me as an attempt by Brooks MacDonald ('BM') to remove this review which, sadly, Trustpilot is apparently assisting them to do. As my original review stated - I wrote a comprehensive letter to BM and it was their failure to respond to this that led to the review in the first place!

After my experience with BM, I moved my funds and have been much happier with the management of my portfolio - I would not trust Brooks MacDonald with my pension funds ever again. In my opinion, their failure to manage my portfolio cost me a significant amount of my pension pot.

Date of experience: September 30, 2023

Lost £4000 in 3 years on medium risk. Not a real good investment!

Date of experience: September 01, 2023

i was with lloyds tsb which bml acquired in mid 2020 they renamed it brooks macdonald hif high income fund .. well we hesitated as we had been with lloydstsb for many years since 2010 ..well we read that they would be doing even better ,than lloydstsb . so we carried on with them . from december 2020 till April 2023 a little over 27 months they had lost us nearly 30% of our investments . they blame it on all sorts of ideas ,,some of which are totally fictional . ,. we normally saw previous to BROOKS ,LLOYDS would always stay on average 86 pence per share ..this was for many years . well look today at the share price 62 pence . so its a number of excuses they come up with ,we find its all fictional ,as why would a large company with knowledge let this happen to its clients .. reading other stories i understand why .

Date of experience: April 25, 2023