my "ethical" fund will now invest in companies who get money from alcohol, animal testing, gambling, military, porn, tobacco and weapons as long as it is less than 10% of the company's profits

[agentEgypt]

I'm really pissed off by this new t and c that I've just read.before the fund would not touch these companies. As its the on!y pension provider my comolany work with if I leave it then I loose the contributions.

I just don't want a fund that goes strongly against my ethics.

I don't understand illegal porn. Will they still invest in illegal porn?!

If you don't want a fund that goes completely against your ethics, then you can pretty much forget seeing a return on any type of financial investment, including pensions.

Can you pull out of the fund if you're not happy with it?

Might be a stupid question but i don't know how these things work.

Unfortunately this happens with collective investments. You don't get to dictate what the fund invests in.

Does your provider allow you to convert to a SIPP?

You think the only investments that make money are porn, guns and smoking eh?

I'm quite happy to have a smaller return in knowing I haven't funded guns to kill people.

I think I can pull out, but my employer wouldn't contribute if I set up another one.

Thanks will look into that kola

You need to look at this website if you want to invest ethically:

www.ethex.org.uk

And Ptolemy is wrong you can get a good return on ethical investments, albeit they tend to be smaller companies with higher risk.

It reflects the fact that businesses are so diverse that finding a company without any connection to one of these activities is quite hard so a blanket ban would not work. For example, an IT company sells software to a number of clients one of which makes armaments. If there was a blanket ban on firms connected with armaments, the fund could not invest in that IT company. With the 10% limit, it can invest until such time as the IT company's business gets so heavily armaments orientated, that it's effectively an armaments firm itself.

Does that make sense?

Lots of Ethical funds have performed well, so it's bollocks to say you can't get a decent return by investing ethically.

They perform okay but not the best consistently. Trustees or providers of pension schemes are required to do what they think is best for the scheme.

Ethical funds have to choose what to be ethical about. Where do you draw the line? You don't want to invest in arms, fair enough. But what about the metal manufacturers that sell to them? No tobacco - understandable but what about paper manufacturers that sell to them? We don't live in a perfect world.

If you don't want a fund that goes completely against your ethics, then you can pretty much forget seeing a return on any type of financial investment, including pensions.

Pretty much this. Funds invest in a range of firms, some will do well, some won''t but overall it makes a profit. So you need to have some investments in firms that make good profit to offset the possible losses. Alcohol, tobacco, porn, gambling and weapons are very profitable.

The other problem is that some many institutions have so many fingers in pies, that it's difficult to avoid any of the dodgy things even if you want to.

The Arch Bishop of Canterbury had a massive rant about payday loan firms being the scourge of society, not knowing the Church of England was heavily invested in a firm that owned 10% of Wonga. Made him look a right twat!