Aegon Distribution Accum Fund Options

akh43

I have had money in this Fund from when I opted out of SERPS many years ago and I transferred the money into this fund over 10 years ago when it was £15,704.82.  

It is not doing well from what I can see as it is steadily going down, dropped over £600 since the May 23 statement when it was £27,856.64 and currently it is £27,217.12.  It is going nowhere fast and not happy for it to keep losing money.  It was £28,348.20 on the May 22 statement and it had decreased £215 from the previous year's statement.  I am not sure of the percentage of fees I pay as I struggle to find the fund info on the Aegon site, but its just over £276 for this year's fees. I don't like to see the amount I am paying in charges when my fund keeps dropping. This is the lowest iit has been since 2020 and surely the markets are not that bad now?

When I have called in the past to discuss I just get confused by what they say.  I have tried to get a IFA to discuss in the past but none ever get back to me when I say how much the fund is they just don't seem interested.

I want to move it from Aegon but don't know whether to just take the money out and take a hit with the tax (not sure how much this would be) or move it elsewhere.  Problem is I have no idea where to and I know nothing at all about investing and not really wanting to have to make such decisions to do it myself.  

I did a SIPP with HL for 3 years after I retired and put in the £2880 in each year, but then just withdrew it after the Government added their share and paid a fair amount of tax when I withdrew.  I have not done it this year as I don't think its worth the hassle when savings interest has increased to much better rates.  I am reasonably comfortable with managing my savings, but I am not with pensions as just confuses me.

I am currently 64, I retired when I was 60 and receive a DB pension from my last workplace and receive £14,549.00 pension and pay tax on it and I have no other income.

I don't really need the money in the fund, but I am just finding it so frustrating to see it keeps dropping year on year and the fees I am paying just makes it worse.  If I took it out would it would just go into savings, but at least I would feel like I had some sort of control over it.

Any comments appreciated

JohnWinder

  Problem is I have no idea where to and I know nothing at all about investing

Tim Hale’s book is written for you: Smarter Investing. Probably at your local library. You’d be a lot more confident with that under your belt. It’s silent SIPS, PIPS, SERPS etc. It would help you make meaning of many of the suggestions you’re offered in a forum like this. Good luck.

waveyjane

You don't say what charges you are paying at the moment (or what the fund is), (oops didn't read the title! Is it this one?) but you are right to worry about that. You should not be paying more than 1% for a fund's Total Expense Ratio (TER, or sometimes Ongoing Charges Figure OCF) on top of any "platform fees" - in this case what Aegon charge to hold the fund. You can usually just google for these on the name of the fund and provider to check.

You should be able to transfer a pension to another provider without any costs/tax. If costs are high, then personally I would move the investment to a lower-cost provider (Vanguard, AJ Bell, or Interactive Investor perhaps?) and put the money in something that has a low TER/OCF (0.5% or below should be possible). For the amounts you're talking about, I'd go for a passive index tracker - some of these go as low as 0.05%. That should make you feel better in the short term at least.

I can't comment on performance other than to say that you only lose when you sell at a loss, and it's never wrong to take a profit :-)  I assume you are in good health, etc. and don't need to access the money for 10+ years or so. Some might even say that when the markets fall, buy more if you can. But then again, you can't take it with you, as they say. 

dunstonh

It is not doing well from what I can see as it is steadily going down, dropped over £600 since the May 23 statement when it was £27,856.64 and currently it is £27,217.12. 

It wouldn't be steadily going down unless you are only looking at a couple of snapshots.

Markets are currently off their recent peaks and back to around May levels.

 It is going nowhere fast and not happy for it to keep losing money. 

Investments don't get anywhere fast.  They zig-zig in a general upward direction.   

 It was £28,348.20 on the May 22 statement and it had decreased £215 from the previous year's statement.

So, the actual valuation differences are tiny.  

. I don't like to see the amount I am paying in charges when my fund keeps dropping.

Why do you think it keeps dropping?      A negative period is expected and normal.  What did you do in all the previous negative periods?   (I suspect nothing).     Why do you think you need to do anything in this negative period?

This is the lowest iit has been since 2020 and surely the markets are not that bad now?

2020 had the third biggest loss period in the last 25 years.    However, it quickly recovered, mainly on the back of tech stocks and ended up being a strong growth year.    2021 was a growth year but towards the end, the massive gains in tech stocks started to unwind. That continued into 2022. Fixed interest securities are where most people's portfolios have taken a hammering.

When I have called in the past to discuss I just get confused by what they say.  I have tried to get a IFA to discuss in the past but none ever get back to me when I say how much the fund is they just don't seem interested.

An IFA will charge you around £500 and its not cost effective on your value.

I want to move it from Aegon 

Why?   That won't achieve anything.

 Problem is I have no idea where to and I know nothing at all about investing and not really wanting to have to make such decisions to do it myself.  

Excellent.  You acknowledge you do not know about these things.  That is not a bad thing and its good you recognise that.  Unfortunately,  to resolve that you are doing the wrong thing.   i.e. trying to change the provider.   What you should be doing as learn about investments. 

I did a SIPP with HL for 3 years after I retired and put in the £2880 in each year, but then just withdrew it after the Government added their share and paid a fair amount of tax when I withdrew.  I have not done it this year as I don't think its worth the hassle when savings interest has increased to much better rates

£180 free money is better than any interest rate available.

I don't really need the money in the fund, but I am just finding it so frustrating to see it keeps dropping year on year and the fees I am paying just makes it worse. 

It's not losing money year on year.      The fees you are paying Aegon are probably less than you are paying on your bank savings accounts.    The only difference is one charges them explicitly and the other implicitly. 

 If I took it out would it would just go into savings, but at least I would feel like I had some sort of control over it.

Although it would likely increase the charges and it would likely reduce your long term returns.

Any comments appreciated

Knowledge and understanding.  That is what you need.   Currently, you have virtually none and it's leading you to potentially poor outcomes.      The only way to improve your knowledge and understanding is to read more about it and that should be your focus going foward.

You don't say what charges you are paying at the moment (or what the fund is), (oops didn't read the title! Is it this one?) but you are right to worry about that. You should not be paying more than 1% for a fund's Total Expense Ratio (TER, or sometimes Ongoing Charges Figure OCF) on top of any "platform fees" - in this case what Aegon charge to hold the fund. You can usually just google for these on the name of the fund and provider to check.

Don't muddy the waters with the OP yet.  That fund factsheet shows the bundled default charge that was used on pre 2013 contracts.  So, it shouldn't be priced in the same way you do with unbundled pricing.   It's too early for the OP to go into bundled or unbundled pricing yet as that is not the crux of their problem.    Charges are the red herring in this thread at this moment.    The OPs primary weakness is their understanding of how investments work.   

Albermarle

So from May 2021 to today it has lost £1,400 , or about 4 %.

I checked the results from a well known and popular medium risk multi asset investment ( Vanguard LifeStrategy 60). Over the same period it lost 3.5%.

Someone with a more aggressive investment would have done better, and someone with a supposedly low risk investment would have done worse. Yours is pretty much bang in the middle. 

The Vanguard fund mentioned is still 15% up over 5 years and up a lot more over 10 years. Probably ( can not be sure ) your Aegon fund may have done the same . Investing is a long term game.