I respect loyalty in all aspects of life, but this really has gone too far. Back in the days when Neil Woodford was managing this fund it was a star performer, but those days have long gone. And yet there is still £5958 million languishing in this fund.
A fund which has been an underperformer for more than 5 years and is battling poor performance and heavy withdrawals. The manager has not been sacked but Invesco have recently announced that the role is to be split.
I am not a great fan of the Hargreaves Multi Manager Funds but their Income and Growth Fund, even after high charges, has comfortably outperformed the Invesco Fund in each of the last 5 years as have almost all equity income funds.
Just to give a couple of other examples, the Artemis Income Fund and the Marlborough Multi Cap Income Fund, both from the Hargreaves Lansdown Wealth 50 list, with dividends reinvested, have grown by 34% and 38% in the last 5 years. The comparable figure for the Invesco High Income Fund is a pitifull 8.54%.
When investors can switch funds without charge or penalty it cannot make any sense to stay in consistently underperforming funds particularly when those funds are in ISA accounts and there are no tax implications in switching.
For sure every fund manager must be allowed short periods of underperformance but five years? You must be joking!
If you have an advisor who put you in this fund and has left you there should he/she be trusted with your money? You may even be paying higher fees than necessary to facilitate continued fund-based commission.
£5958 million earning less than it should do. That is just not right when people have worked so hard to build up their investments/pensions. If you are in this fund, please do not let inertia keep you there whilst the manager earns fat fees for poor performance.
If you have an adviser it is time you asked him/her some serious questions. If you use one of the “no advice” platforms it is time you paid your money the attention it deserves and set up some better monitoring processes.
I am not a regulated financial adviser and cannot give you personal advice, but I can help you set up the thinking processes, systems and monitoring which will help you avoid this type of disaster in future. Just give me, Richard, a ring or text on 07770 575122 and let’s have a conversation.
PS If anyone can come up with any coherent reasons why this fund should suddenly start to over-perform again I would love to know.
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