Unsure about current pension fund

d70cw6

I currently have a Stakeholder Pension Plan with Standard Life: 100% invested in Stakeholder With Profits 2006 Fund.

I've had this rolling along for the last....15 years and have accrued just over £100k in it.

I'm currently reviewing my saving strategy and am concerned over how this fund is actually performing and the cost of it. The management charge of 0.5% seems low, but I cant seem to find fund performance anywhere on the interwebs. Does anyone have any advice / commentary about the fund, whether its worth sticking with, or how to get an analysis of its performance over the past x years?

Many thanks

princeofpounds

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/with-profits-funds


https://www.standardlife.co.uk/1/content/resources/uk_internet/PDFs/Retail/wp3.pdf


Especially bottom of page 3. Then there are pages and pages of information on the standard life website. And you can ring them to get more, I'm sure.


https://www.standardlife.co.uk/c1/funds/with-profits-important-information.page


Unfortunately this is a rather dated style of investment product and somewhat complex to analyse without familiarity with the specific product.


Under 'with profits' plans, the real behaviour of the underlying investments is basically hidden from you, and you instead receive smoothed payments along the way (both guaranteed and 'bonus') and potentially a final payment on exit as well.


Maybe someone who knows a bit of history can help me understand why they exist at all.


So comparing it with real market investments is hard without going through all the documentation.


I personally suspect you would be better off out of this, as the asset allocation is not designed around your particular risk and return objectives, but I couldn't say for sure about how and when might be best to consider a move, if at all.

d70cw6

thanks for the above priceofpounds.
it seems rather opaque to me, I think i may just transfer the lot into my employers scheme which im also apart of and keep all my eggs in one fund.

Looking at my payments in over the last 4 years it says Ive paid in £84k gross and the current value is £107k, so it's made £23k in 4 years....£6k growth per year....average 7% return? is that right?

i hate maths me. and i have a maths degree

princeofpounds

It would be 6.2% actually (the fourth root of 107/84). And that's assuming the full payment came in as a bullet right at the start of four years.


I am actually not sure if that's the right interpretation anyway - the right base would be the value of the fund at the beginning of the period you want to consider, not your gross payments over that period, or the period before.


One of the points I was making earlier is that this probably doesn't tell you the full story - there might be a final bonus figure lurking around somewhere, that only gets triggered under certain conditions.