We are very sorry to inform you that the Connect service will be closing on Wednesday 31st May 2023. This means that you will need to take action on any Connect accounts that your clients currently hold. Your options are to; re-register or cash transfer the investments to another provider or to re-register to our own share register. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can request via Connect, to encash the investments and have the cash paid to your clients’ verified bank account.

We understand that this may be disappointing, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience that this may cause, however, from a review that was undertaken, we do not believe that the Connect Service will provide the long-term administration solution for our clients that we had originally envisaged and as such we have taken the difficult but right decision to close the service.

Yes. We wrote to all clients with investments on Connect during the week of 13^th February 2023 to advise them of the closure.

Please discuss all options below with your clients. In all scenarios, there may be additional costs. Please note that on receipt of closures or transfer away requests, we will cancel any future adviser fee payments.

• You can contact a new provider and request for the investment to be transferred (known as re-registration) to them, whilst they remain invested in the same funds. This also means that if they hold an Individual Savings Account (‘ISA’) on Connect, they do not lose their annual allowance. Premier Fund Managers Limited must receive the transfer instruction before the 31 May 23.

• You can contact a new provider and request for the investment to be sold and transferred as cash to them. As above, if your clients hold an ISA on Connect, they will not lose their annual allowance by transferring in cash. Premier Fund Managers Limited must receive the transfer instruction before the 31 May 23.

• You can encash the account(s) via Connect by creating a one-off withdrawal request online. We will pay the proceeds to the nominated bank account that we hold on file for your client. If they have an ISA account with us, this will close the ISA and they will not be able to use this allowance again this tax year. If they hold an Investment Account on Connect, encashing this could have capital gains tax implications, so please discuss this with your client. Please check that the bank details we hold for your clients are still correct and whether there are any outstanding bank account verifications, as this can delay payments

• You can request to transfer your clients’ Connect investments to our sister company, Premier Portfolio Managers Ltd, which is a member of the Premier Miton Investors group and a subsidiary of Premier Miton Group plc. This option is like option 1 but your clients will remain invested with Premier Miton directly. You should note that there are some key administrative differences in terms of the way the account and the investment will be managed. These could include, but are not limited to, how any income is paid, the frequency of statements issued, availability of tax information and how costs are communicated. In addition, this is not a digital proposition, so management of these accounts relies on paper-based requests or instructions from yourself or your clients. In addition, Premier Portfolio Manager accounts cannot facilitate adviser fee payments from the investments.

13th March 2023 – After this date, we will not accept any new requests to set up accounts, add monies to an existing account or transfer in from another provider. Any transactions in progress will be permitted to finalise. We will continue to collect regular payments until we receive a transfer away or encashment request until the end of April 2023. We will continue to accept transfer away requests from new providers until 31st May 2023

28th April 2023 – If regular payments are being collected, these will be cancelled on this date

31st May 2023 – After this date, we will not accept any more transfer away requests from new providers.

5th June 2023 – This will be the valuation date for all remaining accounts to be encashed by Premier Miton and proceeds paid to nominated bank or building society accounts. The payments are made by BACS so can take up to 4 days to show in accounts. If there are transfer aways in progress, we will not encash the holding and we will permit the transfer to complete.

Adviser fee payments will continue until we receive a transfer away request from the new provider or you encash the account via Connect. If you are transferring away, please speak to the new provider to establish your future fee payments.

Please request the transfer from the new chosen provider, they will provide information regarding their requirements. They will then contact us to instruct the transfer to them. You can transfer the Connect holdings whilst your client remains invested in the same Premier Miton funds (called re-registration), however, some providers will only allow you to transfer by encashing your funds first, so you should check this with the new provider.
If the new provider requests our contact details to submit the transfer request, these are as follows;

Plan manager:    Premier Fund Managers Limited (Connect)
Address:    PO Box 24132, Edinburgh, EH3 1GG
Email address:     [email protected]
Telephone number:    01315 241 900 option 1

Call us on 0333 456 1122 or email us at [email protected] and we can provide the necessary application form. As above, you can transfer the Connect holdings and remain invested in the same Premier Miton funds. Please note that this service does not facilitate adviser fee payments from the investments. Your clients should read the Prospectus and KIID for the funds prior to selecting this option .

If we receive a transfer away or withdrawal request, we will stop collecting any more regular payments. With either option, we would still ask that your client contacts their bank to stop the direct debit payments as well. The final collection for regular payments will be 28th April 2023, if your client has not stopped the payments prior to this date.

We will pay the proceeds to the nominated bank account provided when you set up the Connect account. If this is not currently a verified bank account, we will ask for evidence before making the payment. The evidence we require validates the authenticity of the account, so it could be a bank statement or void cheque from the client. We would expect the proceeds to be paid within 8 working days of the instruction being keyed on to Connect. This includes the time to sell the investments and make the payment via the BACs process, which can take up to 4 working days to show in bank accounts.

If you take no action, Premier Miton will encash the Connect account(s) on the 5th June 2023 and pay the proceeds to the client’s nominated bank account

All withdrawals from SIPP accounts are paid to Embark and maintained within their SIPP wrapper. Please contact Embark to make them aware of any encashment request and what you would like to do with the proceeds

Investments held within an ISA or SIPP wrapper are not liable to capital gains tax. Any investments held outside a tax-efficient wrapper may incur a tax liability depending on personal tax circumstances, however, re-registering Connect accounts to alternative providers does not require investments to be encashed.

If they hold the fund on Connect on the ex-dividend date, income will be due and payable by Premier Fund Managers. Please see the individual fund factsheets for the ex-dividend dates. Any income received after the account has been closed or transferred away will be sent to their nominated bank account or onwards to the new provider (depending on the option you select). If the new provider cannot accept residual payments, we will make the payment directly to the client’s nominated bank account.

The adviser portal and customer portal will remain available until Connect is closed, but we recommend downloading and saving any important information as soon as possible (eg Tax Vouchers and Regular Statements). Once Connect has closed, please contact us on 0333 456 1122 or email us at [email protected] for any Connect related enquiries.

Clients will receive a closing statement including their Costs and Charges summary and a Consolidated Tax Statement on or around 31 December 2023, the regular quarterly statements will continue to be issued until these closing statements are issued. Please ask your clients to retain this information as evidence of their holding and final transactions. You can access copies of the quarterly statements via Connect.

If you wish to make a formal complaint, please call 0333 456 1122, or email us at [email protected] or write to us at Premier Miton Investors, Eastgate Court, High Street, Guildford, Surrey, GU1 3DE. Read our complaints guide for more information.