PensionsOct 2 2014

BirthStar target date funds offered on individual schemes

twitter-iconfacebook-iconlinkedin-iconmail-iconprint-icon
Search supported by

The Axa Wealth Trustee Investment Plan has started offering AllianceBernstein’s BirthStar target date funds to self invested personal pension and small self administered scheme providers and individual investors.

Gallia Grimston, director at BirthStar, explained that the funds are being made available to Sipp and Ssas providers to ensure that the same level of governance and expertise expected for workplace pension schemes is available to individual schemes as well.

“Ahead of the increased flexibility in pensions, Sipp and Ssas providers reviewing their standard investment options are rightly looking to focus on good consumer outcomes.”

Each fund is labelled by a target date range, in order to match an expected retirement date with the target date of a fund.

The mix of investments held inside the fund is designed to be appropriate to the time frame available to deliver a retirement outcome and will change over time in a ‘glidepath’.

The firm suggested that unlike previous ‘lifestyling’ or ‘stakeholder’ approaches, the glidepath can be dynamically managed to adapt to changing market, economic and legislative conditions.

Tim Banks, managing director of sales and client relations at AllianceBernstein, added: “Our many years’ experience in managing target date funds, using our dynamic asset allocation investment approach, has given us a reputation in providing a consistent, pro-actively managed and age-appropriate investment strategy.”

The move follows-on from listed UK advisory group Lighthouse’s launch of an automatic enrolment solution in the spring, which also uses the BirthStar funds.