Starter portfolios

Each portfolio is made up of five funds from the AJ Bell Favourite funds list. Three of these funds are actively managed, while two passively track their respective markets. There are four AJ Bell Starter portfolios to choose from: three for cautious, balanced and adventurous investors, and one for those seeking income.

To get started, you just need to choose the portfolio that best meets your needs. Keep in mind that you’ll need to make a minimum investment of £1,000, and that each portfolio is designed to be held for the long term - five years or more.

Once you've invested in the funds, you’re responsible for managing them. So, it’s important you’re sure you have the time and confidence to do this.

Yes, you’ll need to invest at least £1,000.

When you buy an AJ Bell Starter portfolio, the five funds within it will be added to your account. You’ll see them appear alongside any other investments you already hold - they won’t be ring-fenced from your other investments. To see how your funds are doing, log in and view your account.

Once you’ve invested in the funds, responsibility for managing them rests with you. So you need to be sure you have the time, and confidence, to do this. Funds are designed to be held for five years or more. And the funds we’ve chosen for each are guidance only - not a personal recommendation. Remember, too, that the value of investments can change and you could lose money as well as make it.

We review the choice of funds in each Starter portfolio regularly, making the changes or updates we think are necessary. If we decide to remove a fund from the Favourite funds list, or make changes to the portfolios, we’ll update this webpage with the details.

You can buy and sell investments from as little as £1.50 and you’ll never pay more than a 0.25% account charge (tiered down to zero) per year to hold them. For full details, please see our charges.

In addition, there are annual charges made by each fund's manager (known as the ongoing charges figure, or OCF). These are typically between 0.6–0.8% per annum for active funds and 0.1%–0.2% for passive funds.

Below are the recent changes we’ve made to the Starter portfolios, and why we made them. Just remember this is information only, and not a personal recommendation to buy or sell these investments. You need to decide whether to make any changes to your Starter portfolios.

September 2024

We’ve taken steps to both simplify the Starter portfolios, and to reduce the cost for new investors.

To make things simpler, each portfolio is now invested in just two core asset classes (global equities and global fixed income). And the portfolios are made up of five funds, with equal 20% weightings.

To make things more affordable, dealing fees will be lower thanks to the reduced number of funds in the portfolios. We’ve also introduced low-cost, passive funds into each portfolio to further lower fees.

Cautious portfolio fund changes:

• New: HSBC FTSE All-World Index, Waverton Sterling Bond, Artemis Strategic Bond, HSBC Global Government Bond, TwentyFour Corporate Bond.
• Previous: Liontrust UK Growth, JPM Global Equity Income, JPM Emerging Markets Income, Artemis Strategic Bond, TwentyFour Corporate Bond, Royal London Corporate Bond, Trojan Fund and BlackRock ICS Sterling Liquidity.

Balanced portfolio fund changes:

• New: HSBC FTSE All-World Index, Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth, IFSL Evenlode Global Income, Artemis Strategic Bond, HSBC Global Aggregate Bond.
• Previous: Liontrust UK Growth, Man GLG Income, JPM Global Equity Income, JPM Emerging Markets Income, Royal London Corporate Bond, Invesco High Yield, Trojan Fund, BlackRock ICS Sterling Liquidity.

Adventurous portfolio fund changes:

• New: HSBC FTSE All-World Index, Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth, Schroder Global Recovery, abrdn Global Smaller Companies, Vanguard Global Corporate Bond.
• Previous: Liontrust UK Growth, Man GLG Income, JPM Global Equity Income, abrdn Global Smaller Companies, JPM Emerging Markets Income, Invesco High Yield, Trojan Fund.

Income portfolio fund changes:

• New: HSBC FTSE All-World Index, JPM Global Equity Income, Schroder Global Equity Income, Vanguard Global Corporate Bond, Invesco High Yield.
• Previous: Man GLG Income, BlackRock UK Income, JPM Global Equity Income, Schroder Global Equity Income, JPM Emerging Markets Income, Royal London Corporate Bond, Invesco High Yield, Trojan Fund, BlackRock ICS Sterling Liquidity.

Learn more about why we made these changes. Or, see why we chose the above funds.

April 2024

We have replaced the Jupiter UK Special Situations fund for the Man GLG Income fund within the Balanced and Adventurous Starter portfolios with the weightings remaining the same.

• The manager of the Jupiter UK Special Situations fund, Ben Whitmore, is due to leave the business at the end of July 2024, resulting in unavoidable changes to the way the fund is managed.
• The Man GLG Income fund is a high conviction alternative investing in UK equities with a similar bias towards undervalued companies. The fund is also already held within our Income Starter portfolio.

May 2023

We've updated the asset allocation of all four portfolios to align with the asset allocation on other products managed by the investment team at AJ Bell. As part of these changes, we are adding and removing a number of funds from the portfolios.

• In shares, we've introduced exposure to emerging markets.
• In fixed income, we've introduced exposure to high yield.
• Alternative exposure has broadly remained unchanged, although we have altered the asset class of our allocation with exposure coming from a multi asset strategy instead of a single alternative asset class.
• We've added a cash holding to three of the four portfolios.

January 2021

All four portfolios have had their asset allocation updated to bring the approach into line with the AJ Bell funds. In general terms, this has resulted in a reduction in UK shares and an increase in overseas shares.

• The Cautious portfolio has had a variety of weight changes but the funds used are unchanged.
• The Balanced portfolio has seen the Evenlode Income fund removed and the Ninety One UK Alpha fund added to provide a better blend of UK shares.
• The Adventurous portfolio has seen the Evenlode Income and Franklin UK Mid Cap funds removed and replaced with the Ninety One UK Alpha and ASI Global Smaller Companies funds.
• The Income portfolio has seen the addition of the Schroder Global Equity Income and JP Morgan US Equity Income funds to bring greater diversification in the global shares element.

March 2020

• The BNY Mellon Global Income fund has been removed from the Balanced, Adventurous and Income portfolios as the lead fund manager, Nick Clay, and his team, have confirmed their departure from the firm. Given the incoming manager is unknown to us, we believe it is prudent to remove the fund from the Starter portfolios.
• In the Balanced and Adventurous portfolios, the weighting from the BNY Mellon Global Income fund goes to the Trojan Global Income fund. The lead manager, James Harris, is highly experienced and we believe the more defensive style of the fund complements our existing exposure well.
• In the Income portfolio, the BNY Mellon Global Income fund has been replaced with the Evenlode Global Income fund which has a focus on high quality companies that they hope will be able to generate sustainable cash flow to pay dividends over the long term.

March 2019

• Janus Henderson UK Property removed from the Cautious, Balanced & Adventurous portfolios due to a change in the pricing approach from Janus Henderson on the property fund. The fund has been replaced by Janus Henderson UK Absolute Return across the three portfolios.
• Janus Henderson UK Property removed from the Income portfolio due to a change in the pricing approach from Janus Henderson on the property fund. The allocation has been added to the existing First State Global Listed Infrastructure holding.