Saturday 7 February 2015

The Investment Products to Build a Portfolio should be Trivial : Time Suggests Otherwise

Once you’ve done plenty of your own research (which in my opinion must include a thorough read of Tim Hale's Smarter Investing: Simpler Decisions for Better Results), decided upon the different asset classes that will form your balanced investment portfolio and then decided on the percentage allocation to those different asset classes it’s time to select (and buy) the Investment Products that will give you that real world balanced portfolio.

The theory says that this should be trivial and achievable with only a small amount of products.  At an extreme it could be nothing more than a Vanguard LifeStrategy Equity Fund.  Having now been at this investing game for over 7 years I've personally found that in its infancy you will need more products than you really should and you’ll also not always be able to select the optimum products so will end up with compromise.  Then as time progresses you will end up with more and more stamps for your stamp collection.

There are many reasons for this but some might include spreading provider (whether wrapper and/or investment) risk, new products that give benefits over what you currently hold, inability to buy your preferred product in a particular account, tinkering because personal finance is a hobby and even as a result of some good old fashioned investing mistakes.

Let me demonstrate with my own investment portfolio.  These are the top level asset classes and allocations to each class I'm currently holding:

RIT Low Charge Investment Portfolio
Click to Enlarge

Looks simple doesn’t it?  Now let’s look in detail at ALL of the investment products that make up my portfolio.

UK Equities:
  • Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust (Income).  This fund tracks the FTSE All Share Index, has a TER of 0.08% and a Stamp Duty Reserve Tax at initial purchase of 0.2%.  I'm happy with this fund however there is one small consideration that would make me 100% satisfied.  I'm with the ermine in that psychologically during retirement I would very much prefer to live only on dividends rather than having to also sell down capital.  In partial conflict with this the Vanguard fund pays dividends only once per year.  One idea to keep expenses low but increase dividend frequency would be to create a pseudo All Share Index.  85% of the FTSE All Share Index is the FTSE100 Index with the majority of the remainder being FTSE250.  By buying 75% Vanguard FTSE100 UCITS ETF (VUKE) and 25% Vanguard FTSE100 UCITS ETF (VMID) results in a TER of 0.09% but dividends paid quarterly instead of yearly.  At this time I won’t act on this as in retirement I’ll be keeping at least 12 months essential living expenses in cash so should be able to manage with annual dividends.
  • My High Yield Portfolio (HYP) which continues to build nicely.  This portfolio has a TER of 0.0% (but it does have buy/sell dealing fees and 0.5% stamp duty on initial purchase) and as a believer of expenses matter that’s fine by me.
  • I'm generally happy with what’s going on with the UK Equities portion of my portfolio.

Australian Equities
  • Perpetual Wholesale Industrial Fund.  This is an Australian domiciled fund, is an active fund and has an annual management cost of 0.99%.  Given my current personal situation and investment knowledge everything about it is wrong.  I originally bought it as in the early days I was planning to work until early retirement in the UK but then retire to Australia.  It therefore seemed sensible to have the ‘home’ portion of my equities split evenly across the UK and Australia.  Plans have changed with Australia no longer featuring in the plan.  I also no longer believe in active fund management as I've now seen enough research to suggest I'm more likely to underperform the index over the very long term after considering expenses and manager performance with this approach.  I also now consider expenses of 0.99% per annum high.  So why not just sell?  Unfortunately this fund doesn't carry UK Distributor/Reporting Status so gains are considered earnings and not a capital gain meaning if I sold I’d get no CGT annual allowance and would be paying Higher Rate tax of 40% on any gain.  That’s a big haircut so instead I'm forced to minimise the damage by taking the dividends which I invest elsewhere as well as allowing the fund to become less significant as I continue to add new savings to the portfolio.  About the only thing partially sensible I did was to buy the Wholesale version of the fund.  The retail fund carries an old school entry fee of 4% and annual management costs of 1.98%.  Obscene...
  • Vanguard Index Australian Shares Fund.  Again an Australian domiciled fund however by the time I’d made this purchase I was at least a tracker convert.  Management costs are pretty high for a tracker at 0.75% for the first $50,000, 0.5% for the next $50,000 and then 0.35% on any balance over $100,000.  Like the Perpetual Fund it also doesn't carry UK Distributor/Reporting Status so I'm stuck with it.
  • So two funds when ideally I’d have zero.

Emerging Market Equities
  • State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) Emerging Markets Equity Index.  Expenses are high at 0.87% and if I could choose I’d be owning Vanguard’s FTSE Emerging Markets UCITS ETF (VFEM) with a TER of 0.25%, Vanguard’s Emerging Markets Stock Index Fund with a TER of 0.27% or the iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS ETF (EMIM) with a TER of 0.25%.  So why don’t I own one of them?  This fund is held within my current company defined contribution pension.  So while the expenses are ridiculous it’s still worth it given company matches as well as my company contributing part of the employers NI that they save by my salary sacrificing.  When I eventually leave my current company this will be moved quick smart into a SIPP and I will be owning one of the three preferred.
  • Aegon Emerging Markets Equity Tracker which is tracking the FTSE All World Emerging Index.  This is fund is held in an old employers defined contribution pension.  So why don’t I move this one to my YouInvest SIPP and buy either Vanguard or iShares?  This fund is also only attracting annual expenses of 0.25% so I’d gain nothing financially by moving but what I do gain is that I have reduced provider (YouInvest, Vanguard and iShares) risk.  So it’s staying for now.
  • So two funds when the theory suggests I need only one.

International Equities.  Here I’m nominally chasing 40% allocation to the US, 40% to Europe and 20% to Japan.
  • Perpetual Wholesale International Share Fund.  This is an Australian domiciled fund, is an active fund and has an annual management cost of 1.226%.  Another disaster that has all the same problems of the Perpetual Wholesale Industrial Fund mentioned above.
  • Vanguard S&P500 UCITS ETF (VUSA).  This ETF tracks the S&P500 and has a TER of 0.07%.  It’s exactly what I’m looking for.  An alternative for provider risk minimisation could also be the iShares Core S&P500 UCITS ETF (CSPX) which also carries a TER of 0.07%.
  • Vanguard Developed Europe UCITS ETF (VEUR).  This ETF tracks the FTSE Developed Europe Index and has a TER of 0.12%.  It wasn’t available at the time I bought my ETF but today I’d be buying the Vanguard Developed Europe ex UK UCITS ETF (VERX) also with a TER of 0.12%.  Why? My ETF carries 32.4% UK equities.  Buy the Vanguard FTSE UK All Share Index Unit Trust (Income) for the UK portion and VERX for Europe exposure and your expenses are down to 0.11% plus management of Europe allocations are a little easier as you don’t have to always net off the UK portion of the fund.  I won’t be changing though as the small expense saving and simplicity doesn't override the trading costs and buy/sell spreads I’d be exposed to.
  • State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) Europe ex UK Equity Index.  Expenses are high at 0.6% and if I could choose I’d own the Vanguard European ETF mentioned above.  This is another one where I'm stuck with my employer’s expensive pension options.
  • State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) Japan Equity Index.  Expenses are again high at 0.6% and if I could choose I’d own the Vanguard Japan UCITS ETF (VJPN) with a TER of 0.19%, the iShares Core MSCI Japan IMI UCITS ETF with a TER of 0.2% or the Vanguard Japan Stock Index Fund with a TER of 0.23%.  This is yet another one where I'm stuck with my employer’s expensive pension options.
  • Five funds, of which I'm only happy with 1.5 of them, to meet international exposure which in theory should be able to be done with one.  As an aside when is a low cost international ETF with expenses of about 0.1% going to appear?

Commodities.  I paid the price of not understanding Contango or Backwardation in the early days.  Today I just stick with the Precious.
  • ETFS Physical Gold.  It’s priced in Sterling and annual expenses are 0.39%.  Today I’d be buying the iShares Physical Gold ETC (SGLN) with a lower TER of 0.25%.  To get into it though I'm going to have trading costs, buy/sell spreads and because it’s priced in USD’s exchange rate haircut’s.  Benefit is marginal so I'm sitting tight for now.

Property
  • Scottish Widows Property.  Expenses are high at 0.761%.  This is another expensive current employer pension option.  If I could choose I’d be grabbing the iShares UK Property UCITS ETF (IUKP) with its TER of 0.4%.
  • iShares European Property Yield UCITS (IPRP). This ETF tracks the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Developed Europe ex UK Dividend+ Index with its TER of 0.4%.  I'm happy with this one as I've found no real sensible alternative.

Bonds
  • Vanguard U.K. Inflation-Linked Gilt Index Fund.  This fund tracks the Barclays UK Government Inflation-Linked Float Adjusted Bond Index and has a TER of 0.15%.  I'm happy with this one.  An alternative consideration would be to buy a ladder of these gilts directly but I need to do some more research here.
  • State Street Global Advisers (SSgA) Index Linked Gilts Over 5 Years Index.  Ridiculous annual expenses of 0.6% but again they’re tied up in my current employer’s pension.  I’ll transfer to a SIPP and go direct or purchase the Vanguard option at the very first opportunity.
  • NS&I Index Linked Savings Certificates.  Tax free and something I just wish would come back on sale so I could buy a lot more.  I’d certainly take them over the P2P and a large portion of my savings account mentioned below.

Cash

It’s a portfolio of thorough breads and mongrels.  It’s also a portfolio that is no longer trivial to manage as it now has history.  It is however a portfolio that is seeing annual expenses that are manageable at 0.31% (I’d like less of course) and is enabling 69% of the portfolio to be tax efficiently invested.  When combined with the addition of new savings it’s also enabling this to occur:

The Retirement Investing Today Path Trodden Towards Financial Independence
Click to Enlarge

As always DYOR.

27 comments:

  1. Thanks for this. It's heartening to read that even very experienced and knowledgeable investors such as yourself are not totally happy with their portfolios and get stuck with investments where they can see better alternatives.

    I started out last March with my S&S ISA solely invested in a CIS(RLUM) UK Growth Fund that had initial charges of 5% and ongoing 1.5%. I am making good progress towards diversification but knowledge builds slowly and I've already made some mistakes along the way, mostly around making very small buys and incurring high dealing charges but also buying without having a clear strategy for my SIPP. This is still the case I'm afraid - I'm struggling to work out the best way forward with this one as the risk profile is very different from the rest of my investments. I have ended up buying "Cautious" managed funds in an attempt to protect the capital combined with a global tracker to try to boost the growth. Way back when I started ermine commented that "cash-like" assets for my SIPP might be the best strategy but I seem to have veered way off that course.

    (btw I love your graph :-))

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    1. Hi Cerridwen

      Thanks for sharing as I had never heard of Royal London before. I've just had a quick look at their website and their ongoing charges look eye wateringly expensive generally. If you don't mind sharing how did you get involved with them?

      Minimising investment expenses are a key element within the Investing Wisely portion of my approach. If history repeats my portfolio should return an average of a real (after inflation) 4% annually over the very long term. To cope with sequence of returns risk I will need to draw down less than that during early retirement. Work by Wade Pfau suggests that for the investment types I have I probably need to be closer to 3%. I'm actually planning on 2.5% after expenses which means in reality I'll be drawing down at about 2.8%.

      So my salary before expenses is effectively 2.8% of my wealth. Now let's throw your 1.5% ongoing charge in there as an example. They would be taking 54% of your salary!

      We've both clearly learnt the hard way. But at least we've both now learnt. How many people out there are still paying these types of expenses and in my opinion being virtually robbed of their future? It's one of the reasons I'm glad I went DIY. You see this type of thing for yourself and it becomes an awakening.

      Cheers
      RIT

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    2. When we were younger my husband and I used the Coop for all our financial requirements and several years ago we were each sold a S&S ISA containing CIS funds by the advisor/salesman who visited on a regular basis. We continued to pay in regular amounts for several years but without understanding what we were doing (I honestly thought they were just some kind of saving accounts.) A couple of years or so ago CIS was taken over by Royal London, so that's the history of how we came to have those particular investments.

      When I started learning about investing in order to be able to retire before 66 when my DB pension becomes payable, I realised that I needed to move our ISAs onto a low cost platform and manage them myself. (We're now with Interactive Investor and pay far less charges by taking advantage of linked accounts and regular monthly trades) .

      I've found it a steep learning curve but I'm so glad I've done it. Information gained from blogs like your own has been invaluable in the process. I'm hoping to retire in two years (something like your own timescales?). If I'd kept on trundling away without taking control of the finances I would have at least another 7 to go (if not more). The pension changes announced last year have also been a great help as I have a CIS FSAVC that I have been paying into for 18 years which I intend to transfer into my SIPP and use to help fund the years before my LGPS pension kicks in.

      That Coop salesman actually did us a great favour by selling us the products when he did, even if they were very costly, because at least it meant we were investing rather than just putting a bit away in a savings account. Of course, I wish I'd know then what I do now because I'd be a whole lot richer and probably already handing in my notice, but such is life. :-)

      Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience and knowledge.


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    3. Thanks for sharing more detail. Your example demonstrates nicely how it can get out of hand. Nicely demonstrates how many mouths you were feeding - CIS as a company, the active fund manager, the Coop as a company and then the salesman. I'm surprised there was any left for you...

      I'm with you and am also very glad I went DIY. Even with the odd mistake, which this post only shows a few of, like yourself (7 years becoming 2 years) I still believe I'm well ahead and don't regret it for a second. It's a good example of knowledge is power. Of course it's not for everyone but I now know it's very right for me.

      Looks like we are in a race to retirement (I'm a bit younger than yourself so my first step is Financial Independence then some hard decisions need to be made about Early Retirement) as at current run rate I'm also now a bit under 2 years. I wish you every success and speedy progress to the goal.

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  2. Hi RIT,

    Thank you for sharing your current portfolio, warts and all! It's great to see how you've broken it all down in detail, which one's you're happy with, which one's you'd like to change (and why), and which one's you'd recommend.

    I've given a lot of thought to diversifying my portfolio by investing in ETF's of all classes. I'm currently heavily weighted in Equities (95%+). I have spread the investments in various sectors, and currencies to reduce the risk.
    I would like to transition more into ETF's the closer I get to retirement. I'm just undecided on when to start. A couple of months ago I was planning on using my recent £3700 payout to make a start, but I ended up buying shares in 4 companies instead. The lure of a good value stock with increasing dividends is too much for me due to the gains I could receive over the long term.

    Thank you for putting this back on the radar for me. I'll be giving it some thought this year, and I'd like to take some initial steps in that direction. I don't see why I can't continue to invest in dividend paying companies whilst investing in ETF's and to benefit from both.

    When I take the step, I will be looking for incoem driven funds where possible, as like you, I want to live off that rather than rely on capital growth. Thanks again for your suggestions, as I'll take some time to look into them further.

    Many thanks
    Huw

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    1. Hi Huw

      Diversification across different asset classes was a critical element for me from day 1. This is because in theory there should be no free lunch - a higher return should carry higher risk. The only exception that I have found to this is around diversification which relies on differing correlations between different asset classes to maybe give you at least a free bite from a motorway sandwich.

      Bernstein's The Intelligent Asset Allocator nicely demonstrates this. The link is in 'The Books That Helped' tab at the top of the page if you're interested. He spends a lot of time showing the behaviour of real world portfolio's carrying different asset classes. He shows enough data to make conclusions like "the addition of a small amount of bonds to a stock portfolio significantly reduces risk while reducing return only slightly". His charts also show plenty of examples where return is actually increased for a reduction in risk. It was a book that really helped me believe in diversified portfolios.

      My high savings rate during accumulation and no back stop (no defined benefit pension, no inheritance to come and an assumption that I won't be eligible for any State Pension) other than this wealth during early retirement mean I take risk very seriously. There is no way I could be 100% equities. Have you read this post?  It nicely demonstrates what I'm trying to say in a few charts.

      Cheers
      RIT

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  3. Hi,

    As ever, great post.

    Why do you invest in the S&P 500 rather than a whole of US market fund?

    Why do you invest so much in the UK? 47% of your portfolio is either Gilts or UK equities. This is considerably higher than their contribution to total worldwide assets. Is this just home bias? Or is there a reason why you focus on the UK?

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    1. Hi Anon

      Are you thinking along the lines of a Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index fund or similar? If yes, do you know of an inexpensive tracker that tracks this index? I'd be interested to compare the performance to the S&P500.

      My larger weighting to the UK is a home bias as you say. I do however have to consider in due course whether this is still correct should I take the likely jump and retire early to a Euro denominated country. Another reallocation (as I did with Australia) may be in order.

      Cheers
      RIT

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  4. Why do you regard your " low charge " and " high yield " portfolios as separate ? Do they not make up part of your overrall investment portfolio ? I am not asking you to disclose any further personal info ( as you are already very generous with that ) but should your wife's investment portfolio not be taken into account as well ? By looking at the FULL picture asset allocations will become more meaningful - and also ways of diversifying your investments clearer . Also - if 2 partners have different tax rates , different incomes , different pension and ISA savings, different share of property(s) owned etc etc - it may be that transferring some assets to a partner will make a portfolio more tax efficient as well.( I am not suggesting that this applies in your case - just that these are matters all need to be taken into consideration ).

    Huw ( above ) says he has 95% of his " portfolio " in equities . He is clearly not regarding " his portfolio " in the same way that I think about mine .

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    1. Hi stringvest

      Apologies if I wasn't clear in the post. My HYP is very much part of my Low Charge Portfolio which is 100% of my total wealth. It forms part of the 21.8% currently allocated to UK Equities.

      My better half has a similar asset allocation methodology and is also a Higher Rate taxpayer like myself. The difference is that they have zero interest in personal finance and investing so don't 'tinker' as much. So no HYP, no adjustments for Cyclically Adjusted PE and also less sensitivity within each asset class. For example for International Equities they simply hold VWRL with the UK portion forming part of UK Equities. Together we look at it once a year, set the investments that will be made in the year and then that's it. It takes a Saturday morning.

      I'm fortunate to earn a little more than them so my 55% savings rate includes me paying all the bills. This leaves my better half saving a massive portion of salary as they effectively only spend on 'fun' of which I even pay for a lot of that. The aim is to achieve Financial Independence at exactly the same time which we're on track for.

      Cheers
      RIT

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  5. Hi -

    Is it stricly true to claim that the HYP "has a TER of 0.0%"? With individual shares I'd expect there to be dealing fees at least, which it seems disingenuous to disregard.

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    1. Good point Simon. I've updated the post. The TER remains at 0.0% but of course there are buy costs (dealing fees as you mention + 0.5% stamp duty) and sell costs (dealing fees) should I choose to tinker.

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  6. Why do you not have any retail bonds in your portfolio? You can buy them at issue with no charges, there are no ongoing charges and dividends are free of tax in an ISA or pension. (Unlike shares)
    I find this website useful :-
    http://www.fixedincomeinvestor.co.uk/
    Dave

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    1. Hi Dave
      There are quite a few investment classes that I don't carry (I also don't have any Investment Trusts or PIBS to name another two) but of course I'm always looking to improve my portfolio. It's one of the reasons I started this site - to learn from others What percentage allocation do you carry in retail bonds and which ones?
      Cheers
      RIT

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    2. I have a complex array of pensions, ISAs and savings. I have 2 final salary pensions totalling 26.5 years of employment, a comps fund, I did some AVCs (so another fund), I have a SIPP I started myself and finally a pension at my current company. It’s very difficult to estimate my percentage in retail bonds as part of the overall picture, but I have 30% invested in them excluding my old final salary pensions. The ones I am invested in are :-
      Paragon, CLS, Burford capital, Workspace group and a little in premier oil.
      Dave

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    3. Thanks for coming back on this one Dave.

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  7. "It’s a portfolio of thorough breads and mongrels." Are you taking a rise out of us?

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    1. Hi dearieme
      As a regular reader you'll know English is not one of my stronger points. Give me an Excel spreadsheet and I'm away but ask me to write something... Have I inadvertently said something offensive?
      Cheers
      RIT

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    2. No, not at all, I'm just teasing. Bread "rises" you see, when you make it.

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    3. It appears that I'm a bit slow also :-)

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  8. How do you measure your % towards FI?
    You've gone from 15% to 80% in 7 years. Which is a great achievement.
    Do you see it as a fraction of the income you require to live in that you receive in dividends? I.e. you need £20k to live on a year and you now get £16k in dividends?

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    1. Hi Anon

      Back in 2007 immediately after reading Tim Hale's excellent book I sat down and worked out what salary I would require to Retire Early. Since then on my birthday each year I have increased that by the rate of inflation and modified it based on my spending learnings. So that's the Target Salary I am chasing.

      I also calculate my wealth weekly and I've decided that for me a 2.5% SWR is appropriate (I have published a few posts on this which are under the 'Popular Posts' tab above). Multiplying my wealth by 2.5% gives me the Current Salary I could achieve if I pulled the plug today.

      Current Salary divided by Target Salary gives me my % progress towards FI.

      Cheers
      RIT

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  9. Hello
    I enjoyed reading this and other articles on your site. Very educational. I am trying to find out more about the Vanguard funds/ETFs you mention, specifically Yield % and TER%. (I assume one less the other = 'net' yield)

    Can you recommend a good source to look at to find this out (have looked at various sites and am getting confused).

    Thank you.



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    1. For Vanguard I feel there is only one site you can trust:
      https://www.vanguard.co.uk/adviser/adv/investments/etf
      There are similar sites for other providers.

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    2. Hi Anon
      Ric's already jumped in here. I go straight to the horses mouth www.vanguard.co.uk
      Cheers
      RIT

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  10. Hi RIT - first time poster here. I'm referring to the first paragrpah under "UK Equities" above. Have you considered the Vanguard UK Equity Income fund? It mirrors the FTSE all-share quite well (and in fact has done slightly better.) It yields about 4.0% and pays dividends twice per year. It may suit your requirements better than the similarly-named Vanguard UK Equity fund.

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    1. Welcome poppy woofie. I've considered that one but I can't get past the expenses. All Share Index TER 0.08% and SDRT 0.2% vs Equity Income TER 0.22% and SDRT 0.4%.

      The Vanguard trend seems to be that costs are continually coming down as fund size grows. If the Income fund becomes more popular I can see costs coming down which would certainly tempt me.

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