Fund fact sheet inconsistency

Victorwelldue

I'm looking at my workplace pension fund fact sheet dated July 2021 and notice there is inconsistencies regarding historical performance from fact sheet for same fund dated January 2021. One example:

January 2021 fact sheet states that annual return in 2017 was 9.7%
July 2021 fact sheet states that annual return in 2017 was 14.33%

How come the data has changed? As its historical shouldn't they both report same results for 2017? Other historical years have also have changed results between the Jan & Jul versions of fact sheet.

gm0

This is one of the infuriating things that "just happens" that you encounter when you start to take an interest.

Fund fact sheet performance data are run on particular dates (which are chosen and can change) and the basis - calendar, 12 months prior - varies.  The charges applied to a net fees presentation may be generic and not customised to a scheme pension special (so returns on generic fact sheets may be shown net of the "wrong" charges)  Or pre-fees deducted returns are graphed (not matching unit prices as experienced which are net fees).

The way this is presented wobbles - i.e. assumptions can also change over time year to year so forestalling easy long term comparison.  You would almost suspect it is deliberate (on the part of the fund managers in this case). 
To be fair they are nudged by regulation to change it/include things along the way.   If it is a really bad dog fund then the fund closes merges or restructures and the clock restarts.  And off we go again with "no history".

Pension administrators may well be tasked by trustees with upload (for lack of something better) onto their web site a fund managers published fact sheets or links thereto

So an approximate view at best.  Understanding what your scheme charges and what is buried in net unit prices is good. 
I always find it best to use unit prices x number held where available i.e. realisable value of holdings. And just track the performance of that vs what the markets are doing.  If a holding is a passive tracker then the results should match the total return index net the charges you are expecting to within the tracking error (very often 0.5%) - less over the long haul. 

Fact sheets or web fund graphing tools - Morningstar etc.  are useful to identify funds which contain roughly what you want (Top 20 holdings) and examine tracking behavior (vs desired indices) or how it performed in a drawdown vs the broader market (volatility).  Beyond that - I have little faith in them

Farside71

I don't know who produces these, but if it's the life company running the pension, then they might be producing a lot of different versions of these and branding them for each employer.

I've not seen any actual errors on the fund brochures and performance for my scheme, but there are few irritating little formatting errors that indicate cut and paste job.  Plus some text occasionally that is very generic and might not apply to my own scheme. 

I once raised an issue and 6 months later someone got back to me.

Victorwelldue

Farside71 said:

I don't know who produces these, but if it's the life company running the pension, then they might be producing a lot of different versions of these and branding them for each employer.

In both cases I was logged into my L&G pension account and downloaded the fact sheets directly from there. Only differences were date of the fact sheet and the past performance results.

HappyHarry

Could you provide a link to, or upload the factsheets

Victorwelldue

OK I see it now. The Jan one is for 12 months up to end December while Jul one is for 12 months up to end Jun, so they are reporting that same 12 month period for each year as I think gm0 mentioned. Stared at those two sheets for ages before noticing this subtle difference, like one of those old spot the difference puzzles!