Understanding mirror funds

What is a mirror fund?

Friends Provident International Limited (“FPIL”) operates a range of funds known as 'mirror funds'. The concept is simple: agreements have been set up with investment houses worldwide allowing us to link to specially selected underlying funds chosen on the basis of performance and investment expertise. For each fund link that we arrange with the investment houses, FPIL has set up its own mirror fund which invests solely in the underlying fund, apart from a proportionately small amount which is usually held as a cash balance.

Any changes that happen to the underlying funds will therefore impact our mirror funds. That’s why in our communications to policyholders and their advisers, if we are informing them about a change to a mirror we will refer to 'changes of the underlying fund' impacting our mirror fund.

How do they work?

Our policyholders invest their premiums into one of our unit-linked investment plans. Then, according to their chosen mirror funds, we invest these premiums in the underlying fund assets of the mirror fund.

The price of the mirror funds will be different from the underlying fund. This is due to the fact that the mirror fund is launched on a different date from the underlying fund and often at a different starting price. But the movement in the unit price should move broadly in line with the underlying fund.

Units in the mirror funds are normally bought and sold using the ‘bid’ (selling) price. However, some legacy products do contain a bid/offer spread – please refer to the individual product brochures for details.

To cater for all investor attitudes and savings goals, the mirror fund range contains a variety of fund types, across different sectors and geographical regions. It also offers different levels of risk, from currency/money market funds, to managed funds, to higher risk equity funds. Each mirror fund has been given a risk/reward profile rating between 1 and 5 as a guide to the level of risk associated with each fund, 1 being low risk (such as cash type funds) and 5 being high risk (equity funds such as single country equity).

Supporting information and tools

To help policyholders, and their advisers, monitor the funds they are invested in, as well as research future fund options, we provide a free, interactive fund performance monitoring and research tool, called the Fund centre which provides access to view the short and long term performance of each mirror fund, download fund factsheets, compare up to five mirror funds side by side and carry out simple charting of one or more mirror fund.

If you are a new investor, our Beginners Guide to Investing brochure provides some helpful information on what to consider before you start on your investment journey.

Important notes

Please note that there are fees for mirror funds that would in turn affect the return on your policy. These fees are built into the published unit price of each FPIL mirror fund and therefore you will not see these deducted seperately from your policy. For further details, please refer to your product brochure.

The FPIL mirror funds are intended for medium to long-term investment and can only be accessed using FPIL’s unit-linked investment plans. These plans are also intended for medium to long-term investment and are not therefore designed for early surrender. There may also be restrictions on the amount of withdrawals available from a plan and you should refer to the relevant Principal Brochure for more information.

FPIL is the absolute legal and beneficial owner of all the assets which relate to each mirror fund.

It is important to remember that, as with most investments, the value of your investment is not guaranteed and can go down as well as up. Therefore we suggest that you only invest money that can be committed in the medium to long term. You should also bear in mind that securities held within a mirror fund may not be denominated in the currency of that mirror fund, so unit prices may fall purely on account of exchange rate fluctuations.