Thoughts on work pension fund?

[Deleted User]

Hello,

What do people think to the following pension fund?

Target fund holdings / Funds:
19.00% Zurich Aquila Connect US Equity Index
16.00% Zurich Stewart Investors Global Emerging Markets Leaders
15.00% Zurich Dimensional Global Small Companies
11.00% Zurich Lazard European Equity Alpha
10.00% Zurich Veritas Global Focus
10.00% Zurich Baillie Gifford UK Equity Focus
10.00% Zurich Schroder Specialist Value UK Equity
5.00% Zurich Baillie Gifford Japanese
4.00% Zurich Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders

Composite Benchmark:
20% FTSE All Share Index
19% FTSE USA
16% MSCI Emerging Markets
15% MSCI World Small Cap
11% FTSE World Europe ex UK
10% MSCI World
5% FTSE Japan
4% FTSE Asia Pacific ex Japan

My impression is this is a global fund, investing in equities, actively managed, and as such carries relatively high risk but as I'm mid 30s this is what I'm looking for.

Thanks

Linton

Deleted_User wrote: »

Hello,

What do people think to the following pension fund?

Target fund holdings / Funds:
19.00% Zurich Aquila Connect US Equity Index
16.00% Zurich Stewart Investors Global Emerging Markets Leaders
15.00% Zurich Dimensional Global Small Companies
11.00% Zurich Lazard European Equity Alpha
10.00% Zurich Veritas Global Focus
10.00% Zurich Baillie Gifford UK Equity Focus
10.00% Zurich Schroder Specialist Value UK Equity
5.00% Zurich Baillie Gifford Japanese
4.00% Zurich Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders

Composite Benchmark:
20% FTSE All Share Index
19% FTSE USA
16% MSCI Emerging Markets
15% MSCI World Small Cap
11% FTSE World Europe ex UK
10% MSCI World
5% FTSE Japan
4% FTSE Asia Pacific ex Japan

My impression is this is a global fund, investing in equities, actively managed, and as such carries relatively high risk but as I'm mid 30s this is what I'm looking for.

Thanks

Actively managed funds arent inherently riskier than passive funds operating in the same sector. In fact in some cases than can be much less risky as it may be a fund objective to avoid high volatility. Riskiness is more a factor of the sector.

The fund looks reasonable to me investing broadly across the world using some well known funds that have a good record in their area, and using a tracker for the USA.

bostonerimus

I assume this is a DC pension plan.......what are the fees you are being charged and do you have any other options?

[Deleted User]

Thanks Linton - that's very helpful.

There's a few funds to chose from, here if you're interested / have time:

http://webfund6.financialexpress.net/clients/zurichcp/portfoliopricetable.aspx?schemeID=240413

2 pages - with fact sheets and past performance graphs.

There is a passive global equity fund - would you think this was a better choice - if you've got 5 mins to check it out

The rest of the equity funds are index tracker funds, or there is one specifically for emerging markets but I guess I'd rather leave this up to the fund manager of a global fund to pick and choose.

Thanks for your time.

Linton

I have found the Capita Passive global equity fund on the list. The fund has been going less than a year so there isnt any performance data available. It looks like it's not a global tracker but rather a set of individual country trackers, in principle much like VLS100.

Morningstar tells me the Zurich portfolio marginally outperformed VLS100 over 1, 3 and 5 years.

[Deleted User]

Thanks Linton - yeah I think the Active and Passive funds have been going for the same amount of time. They both look to have graphs / charts going back to Oct 16. There's a few other global funds but trackers from what I can see.

Would you split your investment between the Active and Passive funds, or would you prefer one over the other maybe due to associated charges? Or would you include other funds as well?

Thanks

bostonerimus

Keep it simple so you can easily track the performance. I would stick with passive trackers and probably a multi asset fund, but if you want to mix active with passive trackers I'd use the trackers for big markets and the actives in smaller sectors like EM

Linton

Deleted_User wrote: »

Would you split your investment between the Active and Passive funds, or would you prefer one over the other maybe due to associated charges? Or would you include other funds as well?

Thanks

Active versus passive is an ongoing discussion point on these forms. My view is that one should use the best tool for the job. In some areas such as broad investments in global or US large companies passive works well. In other areas like small companies, income, various niche sectors etc either there arent any satisfactory passives or actives work better. Ultimately it's the fit with the wider portfolio and long term return/ risk that matter. Charges are a secondary matter. Low charges dont make a less appropriate fund the right choice.

[Deleted User]

Linton wrote: »

Active versus passive is an ongoing discussion point on these forms. My view is that one should use the best tool for the job. In some areas such as broad investments in global or US large companies passive works well. In other areas like small companies, income, various niche sectors etc either there arent any satisfactory passives or actives work better. Ultimately it's the fit with the wider portfolio and long term return/ risk that matter. Charges are a secondary matter. Low charges dont make a less appropriate fund the right choice.

Interesting - so essentially I think you're saying if you were me you'd invest in the passive global fund and not split it between funds either. Thanks for your time. I've got some thinking to do.

Linton

Deleted_User wrote: »

Interesting - so essentially I think you're saying if you were me you'd invest in the passive global fund and not split it between funds either. Thanks for your time. I've got some thinking to do.

No, the active global fund has a significantly higher % invested in small companies, and possibly in EM/Asia Pacific (here the data isnt clear) , both regarded as higher risk/higher return sectors. It also has less in the USA. So I would choose the active global fund.

Both the active and passive funds are what is called "fund of funds" that invest in a range of other more specialised funds.

Another plus for the active fund - its split between the different industries appears to be more balanced. The active fund is 16% finance (banks etc) whereas the passive one is 23%.

[Deleted User]

@Linton I'm about to switch to the 'Capita Active Global Equity Fund S3' but I wondered if you could help me understand if the 'Atlas Multi Asset Portfolio 1 s3' might be better...

The two fund sheets are:

http://factsheets.financialexpress.net/ZCPBF/ATLAS3_NFTW.pdf

http://factsheets.financialexpress.net/ZCPBF/ATLAS3_MJMD.pdf

Thank you