Royal London GPP - Entire pension re-invested into higher risk fund without consutation.

Archerychick

dunstonh said:

Archerychick said:

dunstonh said:

I’ve had my RL pension for years which has remained in the same fund for the entire time. I’d have expected the fund manager to make changes within the fund, but outside of lifestyling I wouldn’t expect them to change the % I’ve chosen in equities, bonds etc. and until this year they haven’t. 

Within the fund you had, the asset mix would have been changing.  You just didnt see it as easily.    With an MPS or Governed portfolio, you see the changes.

<br>For comparison, I have dug out some old factsheets from my Scottish Widows fund. The 2015 Scottish Widows factsheet shows the distribution of the fund I am invested in on the 30th of September 2014 as, 15% Fixed Interest, 75% equities, 20% other. I've just compared that to their latest factsheet from the 30th of June 2025 and this which lists 13% Fixed interest, 76% equities, 21% other. Similar bar one or two percent to the distribution as 13 years ago.... so I know clearly where I stand.

Within those funds, the assets would be altered without you seeing.  However, that is not a Governed portfolio or MPS.  its just software applying fixed allocations.  So, a different scenario.

No matter what they are "permitted" to do, I find this unnerving and completely at odds with the "steady ship" experience of all the other DC workplace schemes I currently have. 

They are not doing anything differently from any multi-asset fund with volatility targeting and timescale weighting.

They have changed the fund all of my investments are held in. Is that ‘normal’ by a pension provider? Thank you for your helpful insight.

If you use that type of investment method, then yes, it is normal.

Discretionary portfolios can be held within a fund (often known as a fund of funds).  With that method, you hold the fund and you never see the fund change.  However, within the fund, they are trading funds and assets but you wouldnt see it unless you started reading the invstment reports.

The other method is where they use software, and you hold the actual underlying funds, and you see all the changes.

The RL Governed portfolios are discretionary model portfolios where you hold the underlying funds.

Ironically, they have just launched a fund-of-funds versions so they can offer both methods.

Here is a link to their changes:
Fund changes - Royal London

It covers the annual stratetgic asset allocation changes, changes to the Governed Portfolios, Changes to the Target lifestyle strategies etc

Thank you so much for that link! That explains it completely. Looking at the changes they published in July this exactly tallies with that’s happened with my investments. I’m surprised to have not had any communication from RL as noted at the head of that page, if they had I’d have reverted my fund choice to bring me back to an 80% equity balance (having increased it from about 70 from memory). 

I probably need to review this again. Although I’m now feeling way out of my depth, having thought I’d made a good choice. Is there any way that I can get an historical fund performance view? To enable me to do a backwards comparison? I know this doesn’t help for the future but I’d like to know if I’m better off because of RL actions or not.

OP - that will likely explain yours too.