avc's change

profit_not_robbery

Does any one know anything about these funds. The Baillie Gifford Worldwide Equity Fund, The Newtone Global Balanced Fund, The Standard Life Cash Fund, The Standard Life Protection Fund. I can invest my AVC's with these funds or stick with the Standard Life's With-Profits Fund. Any ideas?

jamesd

The key idea: run from them all.

Well, with-profits immediately implies that you're probably better off changing to something else. It's a largely discredited way of doing things. Then I look at the alternatives and think that someone is trying to make it look good by comparison!

Baillie Gifford Worldwide Equity Fund. There are three versions with different UK-non-UK splits, this is the one with the highest UK portion. They all seem mediocre, not especially bad or good.

Newton Global Balanced Fund. Doesn't seem too bad on five year performance but seems to be getting worse over time compared to its peers.

Standard Life Cash Fund. Predictably below inflation and bank savings account performance. Handy if you're about to retire and want to protect the value of your pension in the final stages, well worth avoiding otherwise, since it doesn't even keep up with inflation. It's consistently nearly the worst of its type. The decent ones at least beat inflation by a little.

Standard Life Protection Fund. Another nice fund to avoid.

I'd run from every one of the choices available to you. All seem like poor performers that are best avoided. If you truly have no other choice about where AVCs go, I suggest considering starting your own personal pension instead, to get a decent fund selection that may make you money instead of losing you money after inflation.

I suspect that it would also be worth investigating whether you can transfer your existing AVCs out of their current location if this is the best that can be done with them.

Since April 2006 people in work pension schemes are no longer limited to only making AVCs into those schemes and there are excellent personal pension alternatives around so people with poor options can choose something decent.

profit_not_robbery

There is more to the story. I just received a notice of change to investment options on my avc's, hence the question. Those were the 4 funds mentioned. So I wondered what they were like. My employer does say I can transfer to another fund of my own choosing. I am also concidering increasing my contributions as I only pay the minimum at the moment. This is due to the fund being with Equitable Life at the start. I also have a non-contibutory pension which gives me 1\2 final salary pension after 45 years. The firm also has a superannuation fund which gives a lump sum or pension at retiral. At the moment I have £12000 in the AVC's fund and £14000 in the superannuation fund. I am 45 and have done 29 years service. Would this make a difference to the fund I chose? Thanks to the overview of the funds mentioned.