The Investment Association is looking at changing the requirement for membership of the IA UK Equity Income sector after several high-profile funds were kicked out for failing to yield 10 per cent more than the FTSE All Share, but will this improve things for the end investor? 
One of the options suggested could see funds disclosing their net yield, income growth, total returns, volatility and absolute net income over five years on an initial investment of £100, in order to let investors judge how well a fund has performed.
While FE Trustnet thinks the more information is given to investors the better, this suggestion has already received some criticism. Hargreaves Lansdown senior analyst Laith Khalaf says publishing this information without other guidance “shoves this industry hot potato onto the investor’s plate, which simply isn’t fair”.
To show how the extra information could be put to use, we’ve looked at five of the biggest UK equity income funds in the industry and pulled together the information that investors might need to get used to examining. The top chart shows income earned over the last calendar years as well as total income, while the bottom one shows total returns (the top line) and capital growth (the bottom line).
While we expect the information would be presented in a different fashion to the following article, these are the kind of data points investors might have to start weighing up when assessing UK equity income funds. Does this information help you or do you think there needs to be another way of assessing equity income portfolios?
