ISA Season Special · Part 1 of 5
With the end of the tax year approaching, the race is on for investors to make the most of their £20,000 ISA allowance before the 5 April deadline. But deciding where to put that money and how to spread it is no small task.
To help, Trustnet has asked the UK's largest investment platforms to reach into their own best-buy fund lists and build a set of ready-to-use portfolios for different investor types. Each week in the run-up to the deadline, we will spotlight one platform and its picks.
The series opens with AJ Bell, whose head of fund research Paul Angell has built four portfolios – balanced, adventurous, income and cautious – each made up of five funds, held in equal 20% weightings.
"For anyone looking to put their ISA allowance to work before the April deadline, funds are a great investment vehicle to turn to," said Angell. "Their breadth reduces the risk of major losses that can come with owning shares in individual companies."
Portfolio 1: Balanced
Suitable for: Investors seeking steady, reliable returns over the longer term without excessive volatility. A roughly 60/40 equity-bond split that mixes active and passive funds to keep costs reasonable while leaving room for active outperformance.
| Fund | Size | Sector | 5yr return | OCF | Allocation |
| Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth | £1.9bn | IA Global | 19.9% | 0.59% | 20% |
| Dodge & Cox Global Stock | £5.1bn | IA Global | 85.2% | 0.63% | 20% |
| HSBC FTSE All-World Index | £5.9bn | IA Global | 75% | 0.13% | 20% |
| Artemis Strategic Bond | £886.1m | IA Sterling Strategic Bond | 11.9% | 0.59% | 20% |
| HSBC Global Aggregate Bond | £9.2bn | Gbl ETF Fixed Int – USD Investment | 1% | 0.28% | 20% |
Source: AJ Bell, FE Analytics.
The logic of the balanced portfolio is a traditional 60/40 split: three equity funds provide growth over time, while two bond funds should smooth out the ride.
On the equity, active side, Angell picked Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth and Dodge & Cox Global Stock.
The former, run by Malcolm MacColl, Spencer Adair Helen Xiong and Michael Turner, is a growth fund that is long-term, benchmark-agnostic and focused on companies that can grow earnings faster than their peers. Angell picked it for its "excellent growth prospects".
The latter is a value-oriented strategy hunting for businesses that the market has mispriced due to short-term disruptions and also features on Fidelity's and interactive investor's best-buy lists. It is run by the firm's investment committee, which is headed by chair David Hoeft and includes chief executive Roger Kuo and director of research Steve Voorhis.
The five-year numbers in the table above reflect just how different they are: Dodge & Cox has returned 85% against Baillie Gifford's 20%, as value has dominated growth since 2022. The HSBC FTSE All-World Index sits alongside them as the passive core.
On the bond side, Angell also chose an active and a passive pick. The Artemis Strategic Bond fund, run by David Ennett, Grace Le and Liam O'Donnell, can move freely between government bonds, investment grade and high yield depending on where the trio see value, while the HSBC Global Aggregate Bond tracker provides broad investment-grade fixed income exposure at a minimal cost of 0.28%. The sterling hedge on the latter reduces the effect of currency swings.
"We like the fixed income capabilities at Artemis," AJ Bell analysts said of the bond fund. "[Each manager] brings their fixed income specialism across macroeconomic, investment grade corporate bond and high yield corporate bond analysis."
Portfolio 2: Adventurous
Suitable for: Growth-focused investors, particularly younger investors with a longer time horizon, who can tolerate greater short-term volatility in pursuit of higher long-term returns.
| Fund | Size | Sector | 5yr return | OCF | Allocation |
| Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth | £1.9bn | IA Global | 19.9% | 0.59% | 20% |
| Dodge & Cox Global Stock | £5.1bn | IA Global | 85.2% | 0.63% | 20% |
| HSBC FTSE All-World Index | £5.9bn | IA Global | 75% | 0.13% | 20% |
| abrdn Global Smaller Companies | £657.1m | IA Global | -4.6% | 0.94% | 20% |
| Vanguard Global Corporate Bond Index | £3.3bn | IA Global Corporate Bond | 0.4% | 0.18% | 20% |
Source: AJ Bell, FE Analytics.
The adventurous portfolio carries the same three equity funds from the balanced version – Baillie Gifford, Dodge & Cox and the HSBC tracker – but drops the government bond exposure entirely and makes room for two new additions to catch more growth potential.
The first is abrdn Global Smaller Companies, run by Kirsty Desson, who inherited this fund from long-serving manager Harry Nimmo and has maintained his rigorous, process-driven approach. The fund uses a proprietary screening tool known as the 'Matrix' to whittle down the global small-cap universe before deeper fundamental research takes over; the goal is to find tomorrow's large companies today.
It has made a loss of 4.6% over five years but Angell said this should smooth out in the long horizon this portfolio is built for. Small-cap stocks have been penalised in recent years as rising interest rates hit growth-sensitive areas of the market hardest, but AJ Bell analysts said the case for owning them over a decade remains intact.
"Investors benefit from the heritage of the investment process, which has been in place for more than two decades, although investors may require patience during periods when the team's style bias towards growthier companies is out of favour."
That said, analysts at both Hargreaves Lansdown and interactive investor lost confidence in the fund, removing it from their lists in July and August 2025, respectively.
The second change is the replacement of the Artemis Strategic Bond fund with the Vanguard Global Corporate Bond Index – a passive, sterling-hedged tracker of investment-grade corporate bonds charging 0.18%. Recommended by Hargreaves too, it is the sole bond holding in the portfolio, adding a degree of diversification without diluting the overall growth ambition.
Portfolio 3: Income
Suitable for: Middle-aged investors or those seeking regular income from their ISA, through share dividends and bond interest, alongside steady capital growth over the long term.
| Fund | Size | Sector | 5yr return | OCF | Allocation |
| JPMorgan Global Equity Income | £725.8m | IA Global Equity Income | 72.2% | 0.84% | 20% |
| Schroder Global Equity Income | £353.1m | IA Global Equity Income | 70.5% | 0.95% | 20% |
| HSBC FTSE All-World Index | £5.9bn | IA Global | 75% | 0.13% | 20% |
| Vanguard Global Corporate Bond Index | £3.3bn | IA Global Corporate Bond | 0.4% | 0.18% | 20% |
| Invesco High Yield | £446.8m | IA Sterling High Yield | 34.5% | 0.55% | 20% |
Source: AJ Bell, FE Analytics.
The income portfolio is built to grow capital while generating income along the way. The Baillie Gifford and Dodge & Cox funds – growth and value, respectively – are swapped out for two actively managed global equity income funds and the bond allocation reaches into higher-yielding territory with Invesco High Yield.
JPMorgan Global Equity Income is managed by Helge Skibeli, Sam Witherow and Michael Rossi, who draw on JPMorgan Asset Management's large analyst pool to find dividend-paying companies across the world. The team is not chasing the highest yield at all costs but blending reliable dividend growers with selective higher-income positions.
Alongside it, Schroder Global Equity Income takes a more contrarian tack: managers Simon Adler and Liam Nunn, both part of Schroders' broader value franchise, specifically target companies that are out of favour with the market, trusting that strong balance sheets will sustain dividends through the period of undervaluation. The near-identical five-year returns of 72% and 70% are significant, given how different the two approaches are.
The HSBC all-world tracker returned as a low-cost equity anchor, this time paired with Vanguard's corporate bond index and Invesco High Yield on the fixed income side.
Thomas Moore and co-manager Tom Hemmant run a portfolio of 100-200 issuers, focusing on sterling and euro-denominated bonds with all currency exposure hedged back to sterling.
Portfolio 4: Cautious
Suitable for: Older investors or retirees looking to grow their money modestly over time – beating cash returns while keeping portfolio swings to a minimum.
| Fund | Size | Sector | 5yr return | OCF | Allocation |
| Artemis Strategic Bond | £886.1m | IA Sterling Strategic Bond | 11.9% | 0.59% | 20% |
| Waverton Sterling Bond | £1.2bn | IA Sterling Strategic Bond | -5.1% | 0.80% | 20% |
| HSBC Global Government Bond | £7.1bn | Gbl ETF Fixed Int – USD Government | – | 0.09% | 20% |
| Vanguard Global Corporate Bond Index | £3.3bn | IA Global Corporate Bond | 0.4% | 0.18% | 20% |
| HSBC FTSE All-World Index | £5.9bn | IA Global | 75% | 0.13% | 20% |
Source: AJ Bell, FE Analytics.
The cautious portfolio reverses the proportions, with four bond funds and a single equity holding, the HSBC all-world tracker, which is retained not for growth, but to give the portfolio just enough equity exposure to stay ahead of cash over time. The rest is fixed income.
Artemis Strategic Bond returned from the balanced portfolio, as did the two passive bond trackers HSBC Global Government Bond and Vanguard Global Corporate Bond, which cover the broad fixed income market at a small cost.
The only new, active addition is Waverton Sterling Bond, managed by Jeff Keen and James Carter.
The fund must always hold at least 80% in investment grade bonds and maintains a minimum five-year duration, giving it a predictable risk profile that suits the cautious brief. The negative five-year number reflects the 2022 bond sell-off, but that duration positioning also means Waverton is better placed than shorter-dated peers to benefit as rates ease.
"The fund benefits from carefully constructed investment parameters that ensure its return profile correlates reliably with broader global bond indices," AJ Bell analysts concluded.
Performance of portfolios against indices over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
Next in the series: We continue with best-buy picks from our second platform ahead of the 5 April ISA deadline.