Aviva to Aegon fees and advice.

wertert

After a bit of general advice.

I currently have a Aviva pension worth about 54k (started 2001) and an older scheme now with FriendLife worth 14k

Aviva; £200/month
Aviva Pensions European Equity S2
Aviva Pensions Balanced Managed S2
Aviva Pensions UK Equity S2
Aviva Pensions BlackRock US Dynamic S2

FriendLife - old scheme - no long making contributions - appears to change a low annual fee.
FL Managed

I don't really feel that either current scheme is really working for me as I've only seen a ~8% increase over the last 5 years and most funds are only performing at or slightly above the sector average.

I have been talking to an IFA about chopping both pensions into the new scheme with Aegon Scottish Equitable FPP.

Funds would probably be;
Newton Balanced Managed is (0.3%)
Aberdeen Emerging Markets it is (0.9%)

I need a sanity check here as I am slighty concerned about the fees moving to the new scheme.
The fees are 6%! of the total fund value day one which is £4020. I then pay an ongoing 0.4% plus a fee for each fund invested (shown above).
I understand over the life of the pension this is good value. The theory is that the investments will do so well that i'll make that 4k back in a few years.

Of course there are other options which include; look at other funds within my current Aviva pension or do nothing.

I have another meeting next week so any advice will be gratefully received.

oh - I'm 44 and will work until 65 if I can.

Velcro_Hotdog

6% is on the expensive side imo, the 0.4% is slightly below average though. I'd shop around for a cheaper upfront fee/%

Linton

It is not too surprising that the growth has been so low - 5 years ago the FTSE and European markets were higher than they are now. You need to look longer than 5 years, especially in the current state of the markets where the exact timing of the 5 years can make a major difference to the calculated return.

However I would take the view that as you have 20 years to go until retirement you can afford to be more adventurous. Also ISTM you could usefully be more diversified - all the developed western world's markets tend to move broadly in step.

I suggest you focus on a good structure for your portfolio first, in terms of sector investments, and then look at minimising costs.

margaretclare

You could start with a solid base of UK equities and then diversify from there. With all the problems in Europe recently I've withdrawn a bit from Europe and gone more towards North America while keeping quite a lot in UK equities.

Aegon are now Kames, and I have their Ethical Equity fund, which is doing very nicely. I also have Jupiter Ecology, and that's doing quite nicely, too.