Trail rebates and a free lunch

I got a couple of emails recently from YourShare.com.au confirming that they had finalised the paperwork required to nominate them as my 'broker' for my various various managed fund and margin loan accounts. They should now start to receive the trailing fees paid out by these investment companies, and I'll be sent a detailed statement of the trails paid and a cheque for 50% of the trail amounts on the anniversary of signing up with YourShare.

I also got a phone call from Paul Brady, the director of YourShare, letting me know that he was in Sydney on business and asking if I'd like to meet him to discuss my impression of the YourShare website. We had a pleasant lunch discussing the vagaries of trail payments, and he gave me an estimate of the trail rebate I'd likely get based on the investments I'd so far assigned YourShare as broker - it came to around $540 per year, which was close to my rough estimate. Paul is an accountant by trade, and YourShare appears to be a small business with great potential, given the amount of money most investors are paying in trailing fees without getting any benefit from the advisors or brokers who put them into the investment. One of the nice features of YourShare compared to other similar services is that there is no upfront fee required to sign-up, so you have nothing to lose by trying out the service. Now I just have to wait until next May for my cheque to arrive. I did mention to Paul that it would be nice if the "Your Portfolio" page on the YourShare website listed all trails received to date, and he indicated that this might be added in future.

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