Scottish Widows equivalent of Allcap?

MoneySaver16

I'm locked in with Scottish Widows for my employer pension (negotiated fees are fairly competitive) and am looking to move away from the default 100% equity fund in there to something as similar to the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap as possible.

Old threads and my own research have brought me to Scottish Widows Global Equity which shows a similar markup in the factsheets with a similar-ish profile of returns, but notable that the AllCap has higher highs but drops a bit more in the recent contractions. I'm not sure what is driving this but I guess it is the active element from SW.

Has anyone done similar analysis and found an alternative SW fund which replicates the Allcap approach?

Allcap:

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/O/NGLY/vanguard-ftse-global-all-cap-index-investor-acc-gbp

SW Global Equities:

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/N/ov33/scottish-widows-global-equity/#

masonic

You can get a bit more insight into the asset allocation from Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=VAUSA05W6O&tab=3&InvestmentType=SA

It appears that rather than having a tilt towards smaller companies (as in Vanguard's All Cap fund), it is actually more biased towards larger companies than the global index. It has a similar geographic spread, so you could get quite close by adding a global smaller companies fund.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute the lower volatility to active management, it is more likely just a result of the difference in smaller companies allocation.

EthicsGradient

Is your pension restricted to Scottish Widows "life funds" like the one you found, or can it be in general Scottish Widows OEICs? A search on Morningstar does turn up others in the latter category, eg
Scottish Widows Global Growth Fund A Acc|GB0031609786 (morningstar.co.uk)
Scottish Widows Global Select Growth Fund X Acc|GB0031741282 (morningstar.co.uk)
Scottish Widows International Equity Tracker I Ac...|GB0031904476 (morningstar.co.uk)

MoneySaver16

masonic said:

You can get a bit more insight into the asset allocation from Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=VAUSA05W6O&tab=3&InvestmentType=SA

It appears that rather than having a tilt towards smaller companies (as in Vanguard's All Cap fund), it is actually more biased towards larger companies than the global index. It has a similar geographic spread, so you could get quite close by adding a global smaller companies fund.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute the lower volatility to active management, it is more likely just a result of the difference in smaller companies allocation.

Thanks for the link - Morning Star reports a much higher UK weighting than TrustNet. Is one more reliable than the other do you know from your experience? TrustNet aligns more to the official factsheet so I am assuming that is correct and MorningStar is maybe categorising by country slightly differently?

EthicsGradient said:

Is your pension restricted to Scottish Widows "life funds" like the one you found, or can it be in general Scottish Widows OEICs? A search on Morningstar does turn up others in the latter category, eg
Scottish Widows Global Growth Fund A Acc|GB0031609786 (morningstar.co.uk)
Scottish Widows Global Select Growth Fund X Acc|GB0031741282 (morningstar.co.uk)
Scottish Widows International Equity Tracker I Ac...|GB0031904476 (morningstar.co.uk)

Thanks for these suggestions - I have a range of funds I can pick from but it's not exhaustive and the fees can vary (global life one linked is in lowest fee tier)

MoneySaver16

MoneySaver16 said:

I'm locked in with Scottish Widows for my employer pension (negotiated fees are fairly competitive) and am looking to move away from the default 100% equity fund in there to something as similar to the Vanguard FTSE Global All Cap as possible.

Old threads and my own research have brought me to Scottish Widows Global Equity which shows a similar markup in the factsheets with a similar-ish profile of returns, but notable that the AllCap has higher highs but drops a bit more in the recent contractions. I'm not sure what is driving this but I guess it is the active element from SW.

Has anyone done similar analysis and found an alternative SW fund which replicates the Allcap approach?

Allcap:

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/O/NGLY/vanguard-ftse-global-all-cap-index-investor-acc-gbp

SW Global Equities:

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/N/ov33/scottish-widows-global-equity/#

The Global Equities portfolio available is this one - I had picked up the wrong one earlier but this time I went through the portal and used the ISIN reference which hopefully is the most accurate. Make up very similar.

https://www.trustnet.com/factsheets/p/ov42/scottish-widows-global-equity-pension-series-2

masonic

MoneySaver16 said:

masonic said:

You can get a bit more insight into the asset allocation from Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=VAUSA05W6O&tab=3&InvestmentType=SA

It appears that rather than having a tilt towards smaller companies (as in Vanguard's All Cap fund), it is actually more biased towards larger companies than the global index. It has a similar geographic spread, so you could get quite close by adding a global smaller companies fund.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute the lower volatility to active management, it is more likely just a result of the difference in smaller companies allocation.

Thanks for the link - Morning Star reports a much higher UK weighting than TrustNet. Is one more reliable than the other do you know from your experience? TrustNet aligns more to the official factsheet so I am assuming that is correct and MorningStar is maybe categorising by country slightly differently?

It took me a a couple of re-reads to notice this under the MorningStar data:

Yes, that's 2013 not 2023! Is it a typo? Maybe, as the Trustnet factsheet is dated 28 Feb 2023, but it casts a little doubt on the recency of the analysis.

You should be able to get more detailed information (e.g. the fund prospectus) from your provider.

MoneySaver16

masonic said:

MoneySaver16 said:

masonic said:

You can get a bit more insight into the asset allocation from Morningstar: https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=VAUSA05W6O&tab=3&InvestmentType=SA

It appears that rather than having a tilt towards smaller companies (as in Vanguard's All Cap fund), it is actually more biased towards larger companies than the global index. It has a similar geographic spread, so you could get quite close by adding a global smaller companies fund.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute the lower volatility to active management, it is more likely just a result of the difference in smaller companies allocation.

Thanks for the link - Morning Star reports a much higher UK weighting than TrustNet. Is one more reliable than the other do you know from your experience? TrustNet aligns more to the official factsheet so I am assuming that is correct and MorningStar is maybe categorising by country slightly differently?

It took me a a couple of re-reads to notice this under the MorningStar data:

Yes, that's 2013 not 2023! Is it a typo? Maybe, as the Trustnet factsheet is dated 28 Feb 2023, but it casts a little doubt on the recency of the analysis.

You should be able to get more detailed information (e.g. the fund prospectus) from your provider.

Yikes hope that’s a typo!

I got the factsheet from the ScottishWidow portal and it has around 5% UK which is more comparable to the AllCap 4%, North America around 60% so seems fairly close to the index. There are small company fund options with higher fees I could use to supplement.