Investment & Investing

Those funds de risk by moving from stocks to bonds at certain pre determined times towards 100% bonds/cash at the time of retirement.
This is bad in many ways but mainly due the likelihood of poor market timing.
It's not rocket science to see that a recession might be a bad time to sell shares. And vice versa.
Self investing is the future, financial education is important.
Due to beauty of compound interest even marginal differences can have large consequences in the future.

I agree a little self financial education is important, but for someone who wants to be completely hands off, they could do a lot worse than those funds.

What about pension fund for a limited company that pays out on behalf of its employees?

As an employee those target retirement year funds will be ideal. Because they are completely hands off investment. And thus your doing a suitable investment even if they leave and don't look at it again until they retire.
Most companies use them.
From personal perspective I think it's fairly easy out perform consistently.

From personal perspective I think it's fairly easy out perform consistently.

In the long term, not many people agree.

Edit: assumed you meant "outperform the market". I agree with your comments on previous page about the dubious value in paying fund management fees.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2017/07/exclusive-wealth-manager-st-jamess-place-misleading-customers-on-charges/

"SJP is extremely expensive – 5% upfront costs are typical, 40% higher than you’d typically pay for the advice of an IFA"

Well, I'm gonna have a meeting with them in a week or so and will see what their fees work out at. I want an employee pension fund for my limited company but I also want a personal fund, a SIPP or whatever it is.

Could put a bit in the managed fund to see how it does vs say that vanguard thing as a personal pension. If they're shit though, they sting you if you leave before 6 years I think.
I don't like paying penalty rates but having something hopefully growing is better than nothing.

To outperform a low index tracker is unlikely by an active fund. That's a given.
But these target year funds unfortnely have pre determined dates where they move from high risk to low, mostly by selling stocks to buy bonds or hold cash.
This is where the flaw lays they will sell even if the markets is in crash mode. Studies have shown investors have lost 100millions of pounds through the poor timings of these funds.
Using very simplicity model you could make vast difference to what is most likely your largest savings pot.

So better to avoid funds that do anything automatically? What about that nutmeg robo-fund stuff?

Happy shareholders

My main pension is an occupational scheme so I don't have the option of a sipp there.

Other stuff is in ISAs, I need to look at whether tax relief on the way in (SIPP) would be better for me than tax relief on the way out (ISA).

It's ok to have automation. In fact it might even be good because it takes human emotions out of it.
But pre determined dates of selling like most target funds have just don't perform as well as they could hopefully the industry addresses this issue. Most employers use them as they are simple and cheap. And such good enough for most employees.

Unfortunately it will be many years before I can retire so this isn't likely to be my final choice in pension scheme. I just want something setup for the company, something for me personally and hope I don't lose all my money, not all at once anyway :)

Occupational pension should be prioritised as long the employers I contributing too.
Pensions have changed vastly recently you now no longer need to buy an annuity but can draw down from the pot. This is good for smaller pots.
Remember 25% of total valuation can be taken as tax free lump sum.
Another factor is that you can pass them on to children or beneficiary. At the moment if you die before 75 this is tax free too. I doubt that rule last tho.

Given you're looking at a horizon of say 20+ years, there's little difference between choosing a fund that automatically sells equity / buys bonds at a predetermined date (in 20 year's time), and just doing it yourself.

Yeah, so I could use one of those termination ones but in all likelihood my employment will change and I will change my pension anyway.

I'm going to meet them early March and be taken for a ride.... weeeeee

Has anyone had any success tracing old pensions? I've got £x,000 in a pension from a job I left in 2011 - since then the company has restructured and none of my contact details work. Would I be better trying to contact the pensions department of my old employer, or the pension provider? Or both?

When I did this for Oz stuff, I went straight to my pension provider.

Go to the provider.

Edit: as @hippy said.

#hippyisalwaysright

I did this.

Had £800.

Rich. Beyond my wildest dreams.

My original pension provider had no record of me, but suggested that I try Standard Life as they seemed to be managing current pensions for my old employer.

Standard Life have updated my contact details and are sending me a full statement. I will celebrate when I've transferred the balance to my SIPP... :)

I did this last week. £42k richer on an initial £3k investment.

<moneygun.gif>

https://www.gov.uk/find-pension-contact-details

**EDIT

I just tried this, and see that the FIND MY PENSION service is dependent on your knowing the details of the fucking pension you are looking for.

I entered my previous employer name and got 10 possible entries, of which 5 were "archived" and only available after a 10 day delay. I had better luck ringing round pension providers and getting them to do searches against my National Insurance number. :)

Junior SIPPs - aside from the not being able to access the money until they are 55+, this seems like no-brainer, given that contributions are grossed up by 20% - are they worth it?