Orbis Investments (UK) - London

Zeeshan M.

A two-year update: As of 1st June 2019, Orbis has done a very poor job of investing our money.

Every Orbis investment portfolio we held lost money, and the amount of loss far exceeds inflation as well as a basic RPI index-linked bond.

We as a family have been using Orbis Investments since 2nd May 2017 and each person had invested £20K of their individual stocks & shares ISA 2017 allowance into Orbis.

Total losses are roughly 6.4% for every account, for a combined multi-account loss of £7,680.

Six members of the family invested.

Each person in the family invested £5,980~ of their £20K allowance in the Orbis "Global Equity" fund - this investment lost 1% in value.

Each person in the family invested £14,120~ of their £20K allowance in the Orbis "Global Balanced" fund - this investment lost 5.4% in value.

These figures also include the £100 top-up Orbis offered for every new account, meaning each person's total sum was £20,100 before losses.

As a family, we normally invest our yearly allowance via AJ Bell YouInvest and focus our investments in ETFs and shares that provide quarterly dividends. We normally get around 5-12%~ in gains per year.

We wanted to give Orbis a go as they are an actively managed fund spread across two fund portfolios. Orbis performance is far below what one can achieve by opting for a basic equity bond, such as one offered by the UK government under their National Savings and Investments (NS&I) brand, or by investing into ETFs and shares.

To say we are unimpressed with Orbis is an understatement.

Previous review left in May 2017 (when we signed up):

I've received excellent levels of customer support from Orbis Access -- they've promptly responded to my support enquiries via Twitter, Facebook and via their internal member's messaging system.

When we experienced issues with their recent £100 cash ISA top-up match offer, they manually corrected the issue and fixed all of our new accounts within 48 hours of me raising a support ticket. I was very impressed with this turn-around time.

If you're looking for a way to use up your £20K stocks & shares ISA allocation for 2017-2018 without having to learn to manage your own shares or ETF portfolios, I would recommend you give Orbis Access a go.
Orbis Access offers two actively managed funds, one called "global equity fund" and the other called "global balanced fund".

One fund has higher returns but has a greater risk of loss, and the other fund reduces the risk but has lower returns (by focusing on government bonds and gilts). You choose which fund you're comfortable with investing your money into and then forget about it.

If you're comfortable handing your own investments and want a higher return on your investments, I would personally recommend opting for AJ Bell's Youinvest trading platform, followed by Charles Stanley Direct and then Cavendish Online. You can learn more about these investment options on Money Saving Expert (MSE) web site.

Tom L.

easy for family and people to gift to kids junior ISA's and makes ok return

Charlie R.

Simple, transparent, and decent returns over the medium-long term. Could benefit from having an investment app

Ana

Awful service, awful company, awful employees! Stay away and invest your money somewhere elese

Jussie

Their website is simple enough to understand and navigate, any enquires get answers promptly.

Ibrahim M.

wow

R B.

I HATE THIS PLACE!!!!!!!!!!

EY K.