Continued growth in retirement

Mr D approached The Pension Drawdown Company in November 2002 when he was retiring aged 60. In February 2003 his pension fund was used to provide 25 per cent as tax-free cash (£11,305), with the remainder placed in an income drawdown plan with a fund value of £33,916.

Since then Mr D has enjoyed an income of £25,464 as well as the tax-free cash sum. A plan which was worth £45,221 to start has paid out a total of £36,759 so far and with proactive management is still worth £41,655.

The important thing to Mr D at the time was that his wife would receive the full value of the plan should anything happen to him. Now both are pleased that the fund has grown and there is also the hope they will be able to leave part of this in their wills to their children (subject to the 55 per cent government recovery tax charge of course). In their opinion, this is better than the fund dying with them.

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Financial Advisers

Jonathan Walker
Jonathan is the director and joint owner of the Pension Drawdown Company.

Robert Bolton
Robert is a practising Barrister and is also fully qualified as a Diplomaed Financial Adviser.

Bob Diamond
Bob is a Pension Specialist who has been with the company since its incorporation in 1996. Bob has been a financial adviser since 1989.

Andrew Ross
Andrew is a diplomaed financial adviser with a history in banking.

Roger Easterbrook
Roger is a diplomaed financial adviser with a background in Executive Search.

Click here for more team members.

Market Monitor

Updated: 14th May 2012

Heavy selling following the elections in Europe and banking woes in Spain resulted in markets ending the week lower. Weekend elections in Greece and France set a volatile tone and reminded investors that politics really matter in financial markets; political wrangling in Athens to form a government resulted in threats to unravel the country's bailout deal and raised the prospect of Greece exiting the euro area.

Global stocks had their longest losing period in six months during the week and the euro its worse run of daily reverses since 2008.

However, Thursday marked a turning point as investors cautiously returned to markets and risk assets showed resilience following $2bn trading losses at JPMorgan Chase (which also occurred on Thursday). In addition, the Michigan survey of US consumer confidence, which rose to a four-year high in May, also helped to provide support and end the week on a more upbeat note.

The increasingly gloomy outlook for the global economy sent commodity prices to their second week of losses, and gold retreated to four month lows. Weakness in the global economy drove demand for safe-haven government bonds, which pushed German bunds and UK gilts to record lows, while peripheral eurozone debt came under heavy selling pressure.

Important information: This update is intended to be for information purposes only.

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