Scottish Widows Fund Choice

Thisisnotasmile

I've got a Scottish Widows workplace pension currently invested in their default adventurous PIA. Ideally I'd want to come off the "glide path" and and just stick to some sort of diversified global fund / fund of funds. I have recently opened a stocks and shares ISA with Vanguard invested in the VLS100 fund, and that's exactly the sort of thing I'd want my pension in too (but with Scottish Widows as it's still being paid into so transferring away is not ideal).

Unfortunately, I'm struggling to compare the available funds to work out which one fits what I want. There are just so many in the list and they just link to PDF fact sheets, there's no easy to see/filter/compare info on things like equity vs bond allocation, geographical holdings, past performance etc.

I also can't see any information about fund management charges for each. To be honest I don't even know what the fees are for the PIA fund either, but I don't want to switch to something else without at least knowing it's not going to be any more expensive than what I'm on now (without good reason).

Can anyone point me in the direction of which funds MIGHT fit my criteria? I'm happy to do a bit of a comparison to make a choice myself but I don't even know which ones to start with at the moment. Also if anyone knows about the fees that'll be useful too, but I suspect I may need to contact SW/my employer to answer that? 

QrizB

I don't know if all SW workplace pensions get offered the same funds, but mine (which is ex-Zurich) offers a range of "SW Passive Multi Asset" funds with varying share:bond splits.

This is the 100% equity fund: https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/p/juxf/sw-passive-multi-asset-v-pn-cs1

It's quite heavy in UK shares but so is VLS100, and Trustnet thinks they have similar performance over the 7 years the SW fund has existed.

granta

I am with SW and the only definitive way to find out fund charges is to call them.
On doing so, I discovered that pre-2014, I was paying some extra commission to a broker/FA, and this disappeared after 2014. Also, the advertised fund charge on the factsheet may have a discount applied from your employer which only SW can tell you.

They also helpfully guided me to which funds I was eligible to switch to depending on what scheme I was in. There's an online fund page but you need to know which Fund series to search under.

dunstonh

I have recently opened a stocks and shares ISA with Vanguard invested in the VLS100 fund, and that's exactly the sort of thing I'd want my pension in too (but with Scottish Widows as it's still being paid into so transferring away is not ideal).

Its probably the weakest of the VLS funds as it's classed as a global managed fund.  So, that means comparing it with other global funds and it doesn't do so well up against them.  Unlike the other VLS funds which are compared with other multi-asset funds. VLS stacks up well there.

SW have a range of pension versions but most contain sufficient global equity funds (passive and active) to suit most people.  

You may not need to transfer and what you have could be the best option.