Wealth Shortlist FAQs

The new Wealth Shortlist builds on the previous Wealth 50 list, but we’ve added more funds, increased transparency and improved our fund updates. We have also:

• Enhanced our selection criteria – we’re focusing on performance potential, with key areas of our analysis honing in on managers, their processes and the culture of management companies. Find out more.

• Introduced further risk monitoring and control – this includes analysis of additional data points and building further challenge into the investment process. Find out more.

• Further enhanced governance and oversight – decisions about the funds we add to or remove from the Wealth Shortlist and decisions about our multi-manager funds are made by separate groups and independently overseen by different committees. Find out more.

Find out more about the Wealth ShortlistSee the funds on the Wealth Shortlist

We created our fund lists to help people choose from the wide range of funds available. Our Wealth Shortlist shows the funds which our analysis indicates have the greatest long-term potential to outperform.

Over the years, we’ve refined our process as we adapt to better meet our client needs, industry requirements and market conditions. We moved from the Wealth 150 to the Wealth 50, and now to the Wealth Shortlist.

The Wealth Shortlist is an evolution of this important tool for our clients, with more flexibility to highlight a broader range of what we think are great funds to clients. We’re focusing on performance potential, with key areas of our analysis honing in on managers, their processes and the culture of management companies.

There are thousands of funds available, and not all can make it on to the Wealth Shortlist. That’s not to say there aren’t other great funds out there. We’re focusing on performance potential, with key areas of our analysis honing in on:

• Manager

  The individual or team behind a fund is its driving force. We look for experienced managers with plenty of in-house resource and support.

• Process

  A manager’s stock selection and style determine what they buy and when. We like managers who consistently apply their strict processes through different market conditions.

• Culture

  We dig behind the scenes to evaluate how fund managers and their teams operate. We’ll also look at their approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors and management companies’ purpose, reward structure and leadership.

• Performance

  We look at each manager’s performance net of charges, to find managers who are truly adding value for investors. We want at least five years of applicable data and ideally, ten.

The Wealth Shortlist isn’t a one-off process. The research team constantly monitor the list, and we add and remove funds using a strict selection process.

Find out more about our selection process

The Wealth Shortlist is designed to help investors build well-balanced and diversified portfolios, representing a range of asset classes, sectors and investment styles.

For investors who don't feel comfortable building and maintaining their own portfolio, we offer ready-made solutions, which are aligned to broad investment objectives. For those who want extra help, you can also ask us for financial advice.

Our clients told us they really valued the Wealth 50 list and the help it gave them narrowing down the wide range of funds available. They also told us they wanted it to focus on performance potential.

We still think charges are an important factor when choosing an investment, though, so we've added a charges comparison to help you see how funds compare to their peers.

We will continue to negotiate discounts and ensure that fund charges are transparent for the benefit of our clients. However, the savings on a fund’s annual charge are not a factor when deciding which funds make the list.

Find out more about our investment selection process

We break down each IA sector on our platform into funds with active and passive management.

We then rank these sets of funds by their Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF) and score them.

The lowest-charging 20% get a £, and the highest-charging 20% get £££££.

Find out more about our charge comparison

Given the level of research that goes into our fund selection, we have confidence in their performance potential. As a result, we don’t anticipate a high rate of change. The majority of funds are expected to remain on the Wealth Shortlist over several years. This is consistent with our aim of selecting investments that should be suitable for the long term.

We continually review both the market sectors and the funds within the Wealth Shortlist. If we lose our long-term conviction in a fund, then we’ll remove it and update you.

If we lose conviction in a manager’s ability to outperform over the long term, then we’ll remove the fund from the list. We might also remove funds which we continue to have conviction in but for various reasons we no longer consider it sensible to put more money into.

We‘ll always explain our reasons for removing a fund from the list and update all holders.

We spend thousands of hours crunching the numbers and meeting fund managers to make sure the funds on the Wealth Shortlist are still the ones our analysis indicates have the greatest performance potential.

Full details of our process

When we make changes to the Wealth Shortlist in the future, whether adding or removing a fund, we’ll update you if you hold one of the affected funds.

If you’d like to hear about all changes to the Wealth Shortlist, you can sign up for research updates.

When we remove a fund, we'll update fund holders explaining why. Removal of a fund from the Wealth Shortlist isn’t a recommendation to trade. We encourage you to review your own portfolio and goals before making any investment decisions.

We never take payment or commission for funds to appear on the Wealth Shortlist.

Find out more about our selection criteria

For each Wealth Shortlist fund, we’ve given a summary of why our analysts selected it and how it fits in a portfolio. For each fund, you can see whether it aims to deliver income, growth, or both. Further details are provided on areas such as management style, top holdings, cost, risk, and performance, to help you identify funds that are fit for your portfolio.

See the Wealth Shortlist

Remember that if you want to add to your existing investments in a sector, you might want to consider fund managers that use different approaches. This can help you achieve a more diversified mix of investments within a single sector.

The Wealth Shortlist isn’t personal advice, and any change to the list isn’t a recommendation to trade.

For investors who don't feel comfortable building and maintaining their own portfolio we offer ready-made solutions, which are aligned to broad investment goals. For those who want extra help, you can also ask us for financial advice.

We've decided not to include our own funds in the Wealth Shortlist as we think it's best for clients if we treat HL funds entirely separately.

We recognise there can be unique benefits to the closed-ended fund.

Closed-ended funds have a fixed number of units in issue. Their shares are usually traded on a stock exchange, and their price is determined by the market.

We’re a big supporter of investment trusts in the UK, and we currently research a larger proportion of the investment trust market than the open-ended fund market.

Open-ended funds have a variable number of units which can be created or cancelled by the fund manager. The value of the units is determined by the fund manager based on the value of the underlying assets.

We think the best way to serve clients on investment trusts is not through the Wealth Shortlist but through detailed research and tools.

We currently limit the Wealth Shortlist to open-ended funds as we do not think that it is appropriate for investment trusts.

The size of our platform means we have to think differently. If we add or remove investment trusts to and from the Wealth Shortlist, it could lead to changes in the market price not reflected by the net asset value. It also means our clients won’t all be able to trade at the same market price – some being better or worse off than others, depending on when a trade is placed.

See our investment trust research