This page contains information for Tailored Plan customers, born between 1984 to 1989. These customers will receive email communications indicating they’ll be switched to the Global Leaders Plan in September 2025.
Why are you updating the Tailored Plan?
As part of our mission to build pension confidence, we regularly review our plan range to ensure that their objectives continue to align with changing customer needs and expectations, as well as the regulatory landscape.
In February 2025 PensionBee launched a new accumulation default plan, Global Leaders, to allow our customers aged under 50 the opportunity to invest in growth, for longer. The plan is designed to give you greater control, clearer understanding, and better alignment with your retirement goals.
Why did you select the Global Leaders Plan as an alternative for customers under 50?
The Global Leaders Plan was developed in response to customer feedback. It aims to bring more transparency and growth opportunities to customers in their accumulation years - the years before they reach retirement. This plan is the default choice for all customers under 50 who join PensionBee and don’t pick a specific plan.
The Global Leaders Plan invests in approximately 1,000 of the world’s largest and most successful companies, spread across 48 developed and emerging market countries. It follows a customised MSCI index, built specifically for PensionBee. The plan is structured as a life fund. This means your savings will continue to have the same protection you currently benefit from under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), with no upper limit should BlackRock, the money manager, fail.
The plan is focused on the world’s biggest and most recognised companies - the ‘global leaders’ - giving customers the chance to be part of their success journeys. It’s a simple and easy to understand 100% equity plan, bringing complete transparency over where and how your money is invested. You’ll be able to see how the events in global markets and companies such as Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon influence your pension.
Additionally, PensionBee will share updates on how it votes at the company AGMs (Annual General Meetings), showing how your feedback, gathered through our annual surveys, influences decisions on important issues.
How does the new Global Leaders Plan differ from the Tailored Plan?
The younger vintages of the Tailored Plan, for those born after 1978, have the same higher risk profile as the Global Leaders Plan. In these plans, most of your money is in riskier equity-like investments.
However, two key differences between plans are:
- the number of holdings; and
- the future behaviour of the plan.
The Global Leaders Plan invests in approximately 1,000 large or mega-cap companies, which are the world’s largest by value and are worth more than $10 billion. Whereas the Tailored Plan invests in approximately 7,000 companies, of which 40-50% of those are small-cap companies, worth between $250 million to $2 billion.
The other key difference is around future behaviour of the plans. The Tailored Plan is a target date fund, which means it starts slowly moving away from equities and derisking to bonds from age 35 onwards. The Global Leaders Plan doesn’t change its risk profile over time. This means you’ll stay invested in the world’s biggest companies until you decide to switch plans later.
As you can see from the table below, the top 10 holdings for the two plans are very similar, however the weightings are slightly different.
Top 10 companies and their weights in each plan as at 31 May 2025.
| Global Leaders Plan | Tailored Plan (2049-2051) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Company | Weight | Company | Weight | |
| 1 | NVIDIA | 5% | NVIDIA | 3.5% |
| 2 | Microsoft | 4.9% | Microsoft | 3.5% |
| 3 | Apple | 4.6% | Apple | 3.2% |
| 4 | Amazon | 3% | Amazon | 2.1% |
| 5 | Meta Platforms (A) | 2.2% | Meta Platforms (A) | 1.5% |
| 6 | Broadcom | 1.6% | Alphabet (C) | 1.3% |
| 7 | Tesla | 1.5% | Broadcom | 1.2% |
| 8 | Alphabet (A) | 1.5% | Tesla | 1.1% |
| 9 | Alphabet (C) | 1.3% | JP Morgan | 0.8% |
| 10 | Taiwan Semiconductor | 1.2% | Visa (A) | 0.7% |
How will performance compare to the Global Leaders Plan?
The starting position for the top holdings in the Tailored Plan, BlackRock LifePath 2049 - 51 and your new Global Leaders Plan are very similar. Although the weights or the percentage each company comprises in your pension, will be slightly different. This means we expect the returns to be broadly comparable in the short-to-medium term.
However, performance will be different in the longer term. The Global Leaders Plan will stay heavily invested in global equity markets and remain a higher risk 100% equity plan. This is different from the Tailored Plan which slowly starts to derisk from age 35 onwards, moving your money to more historically stable asset classes, like gilts and bonds. This asset class, also known as fixed income, seeks to reduce risk by generating regular interest payments as you approach retirement.
How do the fees compare for the Tailored Plan?
Your one simple annual management fee won’t change. The Tailored Plan costs 0.70% annually and the Global Leaders Plan will also have an annual management fee of 0.70% of your pension balance.
Additionally, if you have more than £100,000 in your pot, your fee will continue to halve on the portion above this.
What are the costs of switching?
There are usually very small subscriptions (to enter a fund) and redemption (to leave a fund) fees when moving money. Also known as anti-dilution levy they protect other investors in the fund and are an unavoidable feature of the market when moving between different funds. PensionBee doesn’t profit from these costs associated with switches.
BlackRock’s transition team has committed to minimising all costs associated with moving your funds to Global Leaders. BlackRock estimates that the cost of this switch will be around 0.12%, although it may be lower on the day. This would mean that the average cost for customers, based on an average pension pot size of £20,000 would be £24.
The annual management fee will remain unchanged at 0.70% of your pension balance.
What are the risks of switching?
Your money manager will continue to be BlackRock - the world’s largest asset manager with $11.6 trillion in assets under management as of 31 March 2025.
We’ll seek to minimise the out of market risk of this switch by working closely with the team at BlackRock to keep the majority of your funds invested throughout the switch. During this time your Beehive balance will be unavailable, but your funds will be invested throughout and therefore subject to market movements.
There’s no guarantee that the Global Leaders Plan will perform better than the Tailored Plan in the short, medium or long term. We can’t predict the future performance of any fund. However, based on feedback, we’re confident that the Global Leaders Plan better aligns with our customers’ needs and expectations.
What are my options if I don’t want to be switched to the Global Leaders Plan?
If you don’t want to be automatically switched into the Global Leaders Plan, you can switch into one of our other plans. If you want to switch plans, please log into your online account, your BeeHive. Switches take around 12 working days to complete.
Why are staging the rollout?
To ensure customers stay invested in the market throughout, we’re conducting our default transition in stages. This means we’ll move customers across to Global Leaders vintage by vintage throughout 2025, although the new plan launched in February 2025 so customers can switch into it earlier should they wish.
Our staged rollout approach promotes good outcomes for all our customers in the Tailored Plan.
Can I continue to make contributions?
All your regular and ad hoc contributions will continue to be paid into your Tailored Plan until your switch to Global Leaders begins. Once the switch begins, your BeeHive balance will be frozen until it completes. If you have a regular contribution set up, your money will still be collected during this period. They’ll then be invested in your new plan once the switch is complete.
What if the stock market is volatile, will you still switch me?
We’re working in close partnership with BlackRock to optimise the switching process for customers. If any extreme market turbulence occurs in the run up to the plan switch date, we’d review the switch timeline, make changes to the approach and notify customers.
Risk warning
As always with investments, your capital is at risk. The value of your investment can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest. This information should not be regarded as financial advice.
