Offer your thoughts or opinion on the input financial query or topic using your financial background.

Withdraw funds with penalty or bear high management fees for 10 years?
To me, it depends. How much are their total assets?  Having 10% of your money in something like that isn't crazy.  having it all in?  That IS crazy. Can they reduce their exposure to this account without paying a penalty (say pull out 10%?) The Manager should be taking direction from them.  If they aren't able to get the manager to re-allocate to something more suitable, under your friends direction, they should then pursue whether or not the manager is operating lawfully.