Happy New Year
2019 was dominated by political squabbling about BREXIT culminating in a general election allowing Boris to move into number 10. Most of us hadn’t heard of Wuhan. Early 2020 gave us a taste of the rollercoaster that was to come with a war of words between the Saudis and Russians over oil, the fallout being […]
The WHO playbook
Many of you let us know how you appreciated us giving some webspace to support the World Health Organisation’s “Mr Bean” public health messaging of June (click here to view). As the festive period approaches, we know that most of our clients, friends and families find their traditional plans under immense pressure, but most still […]
Christmas Hours
Other than on the three statutory Bank Holidays, most of our team will be working to some extent over the festive period. DATE Monday 21 Tuesday 22 Wednesday 23 Thursday 24 Friday 25 Monday 28 Tuesday 29 Wednesday 30 Thursday 31 Friday 1 Monday 4th AVAILABILITY Normal working day Normal working day Normal working day […]
Europe: The Final Countdown
Please accept our apology, 2020 has been an eventful year and as we approach 2021 we couldn’t resist a glam-rock nostalgic trip back to 1986 and a Top of the Pops number one. Turn up your speakers and click on play below: Back from 1986, hanging up the leathers and having had a hair-cut; it’s […]
Email Outage
We’ve been experiencing a much-degraded email service since 11.22 am Monday 14th December as a consequence of Alphabet Inc’s ongoing global infrastructure problem. If your matter is urgent please telephone us. Personal and Enterprise users of the Google suite of cloud solutions are being impacted in many countries across the world. Outages do happen, however, […]
“Good Divorce Week”
Many commentators have spoken of the social and mental pressures of “lockdown”, however, the concept of being in lockdown with someone you’re no longer compatible with hasn’t been explored in detail yet. One of our specialist subjects at Investment & Retirement Solutions Ltd is the financial aspects of divorce and pension sharing orders in particular. […]
Cashflow Modelling?
Financial confidence can have a hugely positive impact on lives. We wanted to share with you one of the methods we use to give individuals we work with confidence in their financial future; cashflow planning. As financial advisers, our goal is to give each client confidence in their financial future. There are many stages in […]
Reflections: Green Finance
Green finance is a thing, but what is it all about? We thought we’d share some reflections: Unless you’re a purist, “green finance” can generally be accepted to identify asset or debt investment in instruments which have a ‘green’ (environmental, combating climate change, anti-pollution) focus. “Sustainability” pushes the definition further and generally signifies an investment in […]
supporting Purple Tuesday
3rd November is Purple Tuesday 2020! What’s it all about?Purple Tuesday is a change programme for organisations of all sizes from all sectors to get involved in, with the common goal of improving the customer experience for disabled people 365 days a year, creating a step-change improvement in the awareness of the value and needs […]
Welcome!
Following clients of Beaufort Financial Plus Ltd who joined us last year, we’re delighted to welcome the clients of Beaufort Financial Planning (Mansfield) Ltd into Investment & Retirement Solutions Ltd. Although Investment & Retirement Solutions Ltd is a separate legal entity, from a practical view, nothing changes for these clients other than the company name. […]
Wearing our poppy
Due to the ongoing coronavirus restrictions, we’re not got going to be sat in front of clients and professional associates wearing our poppies this year. So, we thought we’d wear our poppy here, on our website. Did you know: The Armed Forces Covenant is a commitment from the nation back to those who proudly protect […]
National Lockdown #2
This evening the Prime Minister has announced a national lockdown commencing on Thursday 5th November. At the time of writing our situation is: Head Office – Regional Tier 3 (Very High Alert) status Administration Centre – Regional Tier 2 (High Alert) status – moving into Regional Tier 3 (Very High Alert Status) on Monday 2nd […]
Rolls Royce
Investment & Retirement Solutions are proud to count a number of former and current Rolls Royce employees among our clients. Whilst our Rolls Royce clients are dispersed around the UK (and further afield), we have significant concentrations around Rolls Royce’s historically important Hucknall and Derby sites. Rolls Royce announced a fundamental restructuring in 2018 and […]
Sovereign credit downgrades
Lost in last week’s excitement about arguments over the fish around the UK, the developing second coronavirus wave and the political power battle between Manchester and London was a piece of news which at any other time would be THE NEWS: Moodys, the credit rating agency downgraded the credit status of the UK, theoretically making […]
COVID salary top-up scheme
The COVID-19 Job Support Scheme Speaking in the House of Commons, The Chancellor outlined the Job Support Scheme and more financial help for businesses this lunchtime (24 September). The Chancellor said the resurgence of coronavirus posed a “threat to the fragile economic recovery” and protecting jobs was the government’s priority through the “difficult winter months” […]
Protection for those who matter
It is a sad fact that while most of us are quite happy to insure our car, our house, our travel arrangements – even our mobile phones – to their full value, few of us take quite as much care over our own health and that of our loved ones. According to figures produced by […]
Reflections: historical market corrections
In the mid-1600s, the Dutch enjoyed a period of unmatched wealth and prosperity (the Dutch Golden Age). Newly independent from Spain, Dutch merchants grew rich on trade through the Dutch East India Company. With money to spend, art and exotica became fashionable collectors items. That’s how the Dutch became fascinated with rare “broken” tulips, bulbs […]
We’ve done it
We’ve previously highlighted how challenging the Welsh Government’s lockdown travel restrictions proved to be for us to access the Rhos on Sea office, leading to the decision that we should relocate the Registered Office to our Head Office at Ransom Hall. We have completed the Registered Office relocation today; the Registrar of Companies, the Financial […]
Pension access from 55 to increase
In 2014 the government announced that the ability to access schemes such as personal pensions would be subject to a general restriction of no earlier than ten years before prevailing state retirement age. Whilst the framework for this established was established in legislation, the start date has been conspicuously missing, although with planned increases in […]
Changes….
In our post of 23rd June we gave advance notice of our intention to relocate our Registered Office as a consequence of the mismatch in lockdown ‘permitted travel rules’ between the Westminster government and Llywodraeth Cymru which severely challenged our ability to comply with our obligations under the Companies Act and from the Financial Services […]