Scottish Widows has again been highlighted as one of the biggest providers of consistently poor performing funds in the UK, in the latest RedZone report by Chelsea Financial Services.
Chelsea managing director Darius McDermott said there was the potential for this to change in the coming years following recent restructuring at the group.
Scottish Widows had seven funds in the last RedZone, released in 2012, but has six this time.
Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (Swip) announced in April last year that it would reshuffle its equities business, including shifting many products to a passive fund management approach based on quantitative techniques.
Swip said it would cut 23 roles to focus its £54bn equities business solely on global and specialist fund mandates.
“One glimmer of light is that Scottish Widows’ huge investment restructuring programme is continuing, with the majority of their previously underperforming RedZone funds having had either a change of investment strategy, change of manager, or both,” Mr McDermott said.
“Let’s hope that these changes have the desired effect and that they extend the programme to their fixed-income mandates soon.”
Andrew November, Swip’s former director of equities, moved to take over a newly-created role of investment proposition director while William Low was promoted from global head of equities to director of equities in August 2012.
