What is My Future Focus?
My Future Focus is our flagship default strategy, designed to give members that bit more from their pension. It invests in a broad range of asset classes, including developed market and emerging market equities, government and corporate bonds, high yield bonds and emerging market bonds. It also invests in real assets, including UK commercial property, infrastructure equity and private debt, so we can benefit from diversification.
The value of a pension can go down as well as up, so members could get back less than paid in.
How does My Future Focus work?
My Future Focus is a default investment solution that recognises the balance between risk and return will change as members move through their retirement journey.
How we manage risk across the early to late stages of the retirement journey is a key feature of My Future Focus. We drive investment in riskier assets the further members are from retirement, giving them the most opportunity to grow their savings. Then, the closer members get to retirement, the more we reduce risk, moving to less risky assets to try and preserve the capital in their pension pot.
So, no matter where our members are in their journey to retirement, risk management plays a key role. And that’s thanks to the multi-asset funds that make up My Future Focus and our 15-year glidepath model.
We show this for the My Future Focus universal strategy below.
My Future Focus strategy (accessible description)
This chart shows the percentage allocation of investments across the three My Future Focus funds based on the number of years remaining until retirement.
- My Future Focus Long Term Growth Fund (dark teal): Members have the biggest allocation to this fund when they are furthest from retirement. This gradually decreases to 0% by 10 years before retirement.
- My Future Focus Growth Fund (light teal): Begins with a moderate allocation 15 years before retirement, increases steadily until 10 years before retirement, and then reduces steadily to 0% in the year leading up to retirement.
- My Future Focus Consolidation Fund (light green): Has no allocation until 10 years before retirement, and then increases steadily, becoming the dominant fund at retirement.
The chart visually shows how risk is reduced as customers are moved from growth-orientated funds to less risky funds as retirement approaches.
How My Future Focus gives your members choice throughout their journey to retirement
With this investment solution, your members have the flexibility to choose to invest their pension savings in a way that aligns with how they want to take their benefits when they retire.
My Future Focus offers buying an annuity, taking income drawdown or withdrawing a cash lump sum, as well as our universal strategy for those who haven’t decided how to take their benefits yet. Each strategy follows a glidepath similar to the one above. The glidepath above is for the universal strategy.
Each option uses the same growth-phase fund, the My Future Focus Long Term Growth Fund. This fund predominantly invests in global equities with an allocation to real assets. We explain each strategy in detail and show its glidepath in the My Future Focus adviser guide.
Why choose My Future Focus?
Spreading risk through diversification
A key strength of My Future Focus is our approach to diversification. With various assets and markets performing in different ways, diversified investment means we can balance any poorly performing assets with better performance elsewhere.
By investing in different types of asset classes – from equities to bonds to real assets – and different markets, both developed and emerging markets, the funds spread the risk to members’ money.
Sustainability
From climate change to social injustices, we have a responsibility to act on the issues the world is facing today as a steward of people’s money. That’s why environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors are integrated across My Future Focus.
That means ESG factors and sustainability risk are a key part of the investment decision-making process. Research and insight from our sustainable investment analysts plays a crucial role in shaping any investment decisions, as well as their targeted voting and engagement work with businesses.
Aviva’s Baseline Exclusions Policy also applies to My Future Focus, meaning we don’t invest in companies and sectors that aren't aligned with our values, such as controversial weapons and civilian firearms, those involved in unconventional fossil fuels (arctic oil and oil sands), tobacco producers and distributors, thermal coal.
Learn more about ESG integration and sustainability labelling.
Governance
An inhouse governance team is responsible for reviewing My Future Focus and the underlying funds regularly. This helps to provide confidence that the funds in the solution are performing as expected. We carry out a full review of the solution, including the strategic asset allocation annually, and make changes where we believe it will add value for our members.
Provided by Aviva, managed by Aviva Investors
Having supported people through life for over 325 years, we’re dedicated to securing our members’ financial future by safeguarding their investments.
Except for the Annuity Fund, My Future Focus is managed by Aviva Investors, our dedicated fund manager with over 40 years' expertise in multi-asset investment – which is key to My Future Focus. Investing across equities, bonds and real assets is at the heart of Aviva Investors. At the end of September 2024, their Multi-asset Funds team managed more than £107 billion in assets for a global network of clients.
While strategic asset allocation helps the funds meet their long-term objectives, the investment team can also use tactical asset allocation. They can invest with conviction, making small changes to holdings to adapt to movements in markets.
Meet the Aviva Investors' Multi-asset Funds team, the dedicated asset manager for the My Future Focus funds (except for the My Future Focus Annuity Fund as mentioned above).
Sunil Krishnan
Head of Multi-asset Funds
Sotirios Nakos
Head of Multi-asset Portfolio Management
Useful information
ESG integration means the integration of ESG factors and consideration of sustainability risk as part of the investment decision-making process. This process is applied beyond any specific binding constraints (in the objective or strategy of the fund as detailed in the prospectus or investment management agreement and in accordance with our Baseline Exclusions Policy).
The investment manager retains discretion on decision-making taking all risks into account, beyond any binding criteria.
Although we use ESG criteria when choosing areas for investments, it is important to note that ESG is different to sustainability labels.
Sustainability labelling has been introduced to facilitate sustainability comparisons between different investment funds. Sustainability labels are independently assessed and an addition to Aviva ESG criteria.
