A few changes are being made to the investment choices in the Investor Plan, which are aimed at making things simpler, however the changes won’t affect the majority of members.
If you are impacted you will have received a letter asking you to make a new choice, otherwise you will be moved into the Default investment choice – Flexible Access Lifestyle with a Target Retirement Age of 65.
Here is a summary of the changes:
1. You can choose to invest in either the Freestyle or Lifestyle investment strategies
Within the Investor Plan, you can choose between Lifestyle or Freestyle investment strategies. Lifestyle is designed on your behalf by the SBS Trustee, whereas Freestyle provides you with a range of funds to invest in. Within Lifestyle there are three options to choose from and within Freestyle there are 12 funds available. These Lifestyle and Freestyle strategies are still available, but we are asking you to now choose either Freestyle or Lifestyle, not both. If you choose Lifestyle you will also only be able to select one of the Lifestyle options.
2. A move to one Target Retirement age
If you are invested in one of the Lifestyle options, your Target Retirement Age tells us when we should start switching you into less volatile investments as you approach your Target Retirement Age. The Default Target Retirement Age is 65, but you can also pick a different age when you select your Lifestyle option. We are moving from allowing multiple Target Retirement Ages to asking you to select one Target Retirement Age for your one Lifestyle option.
3. Invest by % proportion
You can invest a % proportion of your contributions in your chosen Freestyle funds e.g. 10% in Opportunity fund, 20% in Cash etc, to a total of 100%, or 100% in your chosen Lifestyle option. This approach is simpler than the choices that were available previously and will be applied to your existing investments and also future contributions.
4. Removal of the Siemens UK Equity Active Fund
The Siemens UK Equity Active Fund has not been performing in line with the SBS Trustee’s expectations so we have removed it as a Freestyle fund choice. If you currently invest in this fund, you will need to reallocate this to alternative investments, otherwise you will be moved into the Default investment choice – Flexible Access Lifestyle with a Target Retirement Age of 65.
These are the four main changes, but we have also made some name changes for two of the Freestyle funds:
- Siemens Global Equity Passive has been renamed Siemens Global Equity Index Tracker.
- Siemens UK Equity Passive has been renamed Siemens UK Equity Index Tracker.
The SBS Trustee continues to work on your behalf to monitor the performance of investments, and to review the choices available to you. If you have any feedback you’d like to provide us, please contact siemens@thpa.co.uk