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[Deleted User]

Thanks for responses. 

Albermarle

pg7 said:

Where is the best place to find a (preferably independent) list of the best performing companies for drawdown pensions? I have 3 small pensions across two companies, total around £100k, and am looking to move them to one provider, accessing the 25% tax free element in January and leaving the rest invested. Thank you. 

Pension companies /providers do not perform . They just provide an administrative service, sorting out contributions, with drawals, tax and holding the investments etc .
The investments that you hold within the pension perform ( or not) 
Do you actually mean which providers have better customer service , better websites etc ?

NottinghamKnight

You have failed to understand Albermarle's point, the companies just provide a wrapper. You, or your adviser, then select typically a range of funds and investments to meet your requirements. You can look through Trustnet or Morningstar to see the relevant performance of individual funds managed by investment companies, one thing for sure is that they will vary massively and that for 3 years will be different to 5 years and 10 years.  

Albermarle

Just be aware there is a lot . To go through all managed funds on Trustnet might take you through to Xmas !

Linton

The best performing fund over 1,3 and 5 years is Baillie Gifford American,  349% return over 5 years. Just what you want?

However one little problem.  It is highly invested in a small number of arguably overvalued higher risk immature companies mainly in the tech and consumer discretional sectors.  For example its largest holding is in Tesla at 10%.  In the great crash it fell about 40 % in value and in the recent Covid mini crash 30%, bouncing back both times.  Is this a fund you really want to form the basis of your income for the rest of your life?  Would you nerves withstand a 40% fall in value?  

Part of the reason the fund is highest placed over all the time periods is that it has had an exceptionally good run in the past 6 months rising some 96% since Covid equivalent to 284%  increase per year.  In the previous 54 months it rose about `130%, a much lower annualised rate of 20%/year.  

That is the problem - higher return is linked to higher risk and volatility.  Furthermore success in the past is no guarantee of success in the future.  The past 10 years have been very good for the large US tech companies.  This rate of increase cant be sustained as these companies mature.

The lesson is that in retirement you need to invest broadly so are not hurt more than you are able to accept during the crashes and so you cover all bases - you do not know where you will find next year's Tesla or the company you have never heard of which will overtake Apple in 5 years time..  Just going for yesterday's best performers will end in tears.

dunstonh

Where is the best place to find a (preferably independent) list of the best performing companies for drawdown pensions?

What do you mean by performance?   

Most of the platforms, whether advised or direct to consumer, have the same investment options across all of them.  So, performance in terms of returns will be the same with all of them.  Remember it is the investments that perform. Not the provider.  Unless you are talking about the quality of their software and ease of use etc.

No I don't mean that. I mean if I put £100k in a managed fund with each of several providers, which one over the last 3 / 5/ 10 years would have delivered the greatest return

All of them would perform the same as you would have picked the same fund with each.

I do understand but was looking for Trustnet and Morningstar so that is helpful. 

Also remember that this gives you past performance in a discrete period but it doesn't tell you what future returns will be.  Also, the best performing in that period could be totally unsuitable.   For example, if you go by a typical 1-10 risk scale and take the mixed asset 40-85% sector, then you will have funds in that sector that can fall under risk 4 to 9.    Just because a fund is in a sector, does not mean all funds in that sector are the same risk.    The top-performing fund in a growth period will likely be amongst the worst performing in a negative period (i.e. lose more money).  Although that is a generalisation that is not accurate across the board.   So, you will need to look under the hood and see how it invests and the levels of risk it has.    

Many of the funds in the other sectors are designed to be held as a portfolio of funds. i.e. not in isolation but one of a 10 or so funds held.  Others are multi-asset funds that can be held by themselves.   So, you need to understand the investments a lot more than just picking one on trustnet that performed very well for one period.