Ensuring that you can afford the retirement lifestyle you want is one of life’s main

financial objectives. However, the increasingly complex nature of pensions

legislation has left many facing tough decisions. Whilst some may struggle to

secure the retirement they want, there are significant rewards for prudent planning.

Making important financial decisions can often be

a daunting prospect, even for the most

experienced of us. Understanding how and when

to make these decisions can be even harder.

Pension Freedom legislation gives you more

choice than ever over how you take your pension

benefits. However with that comes complexity.

Financial advice from a trusted expert can be

invaluable in helping you to make these decisions,

ensuring you are not left disappointed by

insufficient or unexpected income levels in

retirement.

Helping clients to achieve their financial goals is

something that we at Mercer Financial

Planning (MFP) are passionate about.

Through your employer, you will be able to access

a wide range of resources to help you with your

key pension decisions. However, these alone will

not be enough to secure a suitable outcome for

everyone; especially those who have a diverse

range of pension assets and/or complex planning

needs.

We offer a range of advised services designed to

help you achieve your retirement planning goals.

Through these services we will highlight the key

considerations and provide you with

recommendations so you can take the most

appropriate action.

You can then be confident of achieving the

retirement you want.

MERCER FINANCIAL PLANNING

Advised Pension Services

2

Organising your finances can be

complex and time-consuming so it’s

good to know that trusted expertise is

available to help develop a financial

plan and make those crucial decisions.

We often think of money and wealth as being

the primary factor to achieving financial security,

but whilst it plays an important role, there is

more to being confident about your future

financial planning than cold numbers.

A Financial Planner can help you by offering

support around:

Future security, ensuring you have

enough income for later life

Protection, safeguarding you and

your family should the worst happen

Saving time, letting us research the

market for you

Return on investment, investing in

line with your objectives and attitude to

risk.

We passionately believe that everyone should

have access to the right support so that they can

feel confident about their finances.

ABOUT MFP

3

We all have dreams and aspirations for the future. And we all need a

plan to ensure we have the right financial resources in place at the

right time, to help turn those dreams into reality. Similarly, we all

reach points in our life where we have important decisions to make,

such as when to retire and how to access our pension benefits.

4

As a firm, Mercer Financial Planning has been awarded the prestigious Chartered Fin-

ancial Planners designation by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII), an accredita-

tion of which we are immensely proud.

Currently held by less than 10% of the industry, Chartered status is the gold standard

for firms of financial planners and provides independent testament to our ongoing

professionalism. Part of the accreditation process is to ensure that we work in an

ethical manner, meaning that our clients’ interests are always at the heart of any

advice we give.

Many of our Financial Planners also hold Chartered status in their own right, and we

continue to ensure that they build on this expertise, retaining the knowledge and skills

required to provide the highest quality of advice to our clients.

CHARTERED FINANCIAL PLANNING

5

STUART DONNACHIE

Stuart has worked for Mercer for 5 years within the Defined Contribution Pensions

Consulting & Individual Wealth practice. He is a member of the personal financial

planning team and regularly provides individuals with education on retirement plan-

ning and wider financial planning issues. Stuart holds the Diploma in Financial

Planning and is also a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute. He holds spe-

cialist exams in pensions and investments and has a wide knowledge base which

allows him to provide a fully holistic approach to financial planning.

MEET THE TEAM

JAMES LUPAN

James has worked for Mercer for 6 years within the Defined Contribution Pensions

Consulting & Individual Wealth practice. He is a Chartered Financial Planner and

has achieved “Fellow” status through the Personal Finance Society. James has over

15 years of experience within the financial services industry and over this time has

gained a wealth of knowledge in providing advice to individuals across a whole

range of advice areas including retirement planning and protection (for both

individuals and businesses).

STUART MILLER

Stuart joined Mercer in 2001. He advises clients on all aspects of their personal

financial planning including pensions, investments, estate planning and protection.

Stuart has worked with many clients delivering topical workshops and

communications on areas including pension taxation changes and retirement

planning. Stuart is a Fellow of the Personal Finance Society and a Chartered

Financial Planner and holds a degree in Business.

6

OUR PENSION SERVICES

Pensions are a complicated subject. As a result, many prefer to receive

assistance from a professional regarding the challenges they face. This

may include consolidating existing arrangements, analysing whether

you are on track to hit your retirement goal, considering whether any

further provision is required and whether you are, or may be, impacted

by changes in pension legislation.

Everyone’s needs are different, so our advised services have been designed

to provide assistance at different times, depending where you are in your

retirement journey. These can be split into two levels:

Level 1 - Specialised Pension Services

These services look at specific areas of pension saving and

legislation that might affect you on an ongoing basis.

Level 2 - Executive Pension Advisory Service

A fuller pension ‘health check’, looking at areas such as the tax

efficiency of your contribution strategy, the suitability of your

investment profile and your income options in retirement.

7

We all know that the ‘job for life’ culture is a thing

of the past, and with greater employee mobility

the greater the chance that individuals will end

up with more than one pension arrangement.

This can be cumbersome from a personal

administration point of view but also difficult to

manage. Consolidating arrangements can

simplify these challenges.

Our Pension Consolidation Service is a

telephone based service where we provide an

overview and analysis of your existing pension

arrangements and outline whether it is suitable

to consolidate these into your existing

employers pension arrangement or not.

We will supply you with a recommendation

report which will outline any guarantees or

penalties that would be applied to your existing

schemes, which will then be factored into our

overall advice.

Where we do recommend your pensions should

be consolidated, we will provide you with the

necessary paperwork to action this.

The fee for this service is £1,000 plus VAT.

This service is designed to cover Defined

Contribution pension consolidation only. It does

not include advice on Defined Benefit pensions,

which is available separately.

PENSION CONSOLIDATION SERVICE

There have been many changes to pension

legislation in recent years. In particular, the

amounts that can be contributed to a pension

each year and the total funds that can be

accrued without penalty have been significantly

reduced. Whilst pensions offer a tax efficient

way of saving, breaching these limits can

heavily reduce this efficiency.

The current Annual Allowance is £40,000

(2018/19 tax year) however further restrictions

apply if you have drawn benefits flexibly (Money

Purchase Annual Allowance) or if you are a high

earner (Tapered Annual Allowance). It can

therefore be difficult to understand how to

maximise contributions into your pension.

Our Annual Allowance analysis will outline

whether or not you are impacted by either of

these, whether any penalties are likely to apply

and the options that are available to you.

The Lifetime Allowance is currently £1,030,000

and will increase in line with inflation each April.

The penalty for drawing funds over and above

this limit can be significant. Our Lifetime

Allowance analysis will review your current

pension provision and any ongoing contributions

to ascertain whether you are likely to exceed the

Lifetime Allowance and when this may occur.

We will then outline what actions you could

consider.

The fees for these services individually are

£1,500 plus VAT.

ANNUAL & LIFETIME ALLOWANCE ANALYSIS

8

When I retired some years ago I had various pensions and investments I had acquired

over the years. I’d used MFP’s services for quite some time and was confident about their

expertise, so together we prioritised my requirements, which were: to rationalise, and

take an income from my investments as tax efficiently as possible, whilst at the same time

trying to grow that investment.

Together we decided on a portfolio split across a number of different types of investments

using a single wrap. To ensure I stay on track with my requirements I meet each year with

my Financial Planner, and have been extremely satisfied with the performance of my

Mercer portfolio, and particularly with my Financial Planner who is always on hand to dis

cuss any requirements I may have.

Alan McCarthy, Retained Wealth Management client

9

This service provides you with a pension ‘health check’,

providing detailed analysis and advice on all the major

planning areas that may affect your pension arrangements.

Under this service, we cover the following:

Analysis of your retirement income objectives

Planning in respect of current and future pension

contribution levels

Risk profiling and attitude to risk analysis

Where applicable, Annual Allowance and Lifetime

Allowance analysis

After an initial fact finding meeting with one of our Financial

Planners, where we would obtain details of your personal

circumstances and objectives, we conduct a full analysis of

your existing pension provision.

Once this review process is complete we then provide you

with a comprehensive report at a follow up meeting,

outlining our findings and any recommendations we deem

appropriate. Once agreed we then help you to implement

these recommendations.

The service aims to provide you with a clear understanding

of your current pension position and to outline a suitable

strategy with the aim of helping you to achieve your goals.

The fee for this is £2,000 plus VAT.

However, if additional complex advice is required i.e.

defined benefit transfer, then this fee will increase

accordingly. We will always discuss any additional fees with

you before conducting any work.

EXECUTIVE PENSION

ADVISORY SERVICE

10

11

We know that advising our clients where to

invest their money is crucially important to them

achieving their future aspirations, and it is a

responsibility that we take very seriously.

We therefore have in place an Investment

Steering Committee to manage and monitor the

range of investment solutions we recommend for

our clients.

The Committee is made up of professionals with

extensive investment expertise and experience.

It reviews aspects like performance, charges and

risk levels, as well as fund managers’ business

structure, investment process and investment

philosophy.

INVESTMENT EXPERTISE

INVESTMENT GOVERNANCE

It creates value by applying its extensive

knowledge to solving investment challenges on

behalf of its clients with more than $11 trillion in

assets under advice and $227 billion under man-

agement. Mercer leverages its scale to secure

exceptional fee arrangements for clients, and in

particular to ensure that investment manage-

ment fees remain highly competitive. Mercer

manages the Mercer Managed Portfolio Service,

an investment solution available exclusively to

our clients.

The Mercer Managed Portfolio Service strikes a

sensible balance between targeting growth and

managing risk, that we believe our clients appre-

ciate and value.

The portfolios have been created to provide

realistic Investment returns over the medium to

long term, whilst monitoring and controlling risk

and cost. If you would like more information

about these portfolios please request a brochure

from us.

Being part of Mercer means we are able to draw on the extensive resources of one

of the world’s leading investment managers and researchers. Mercer has a depth

of experience and intellectual capital gained from advising a broad range of clients

and has been dedicated to meeting the needs of clients for more than 40 years,

working with individuals, wealth managers, Pension funds, insurance companies,

foundations, banks and financial advisers in over 20 countries.

12

CONTACT US

If you would like to find out more about our

services and how we can help, please feel free

to get in touch:

Telephone:

0207 178 7380

Email:

stuart.miller@mercer.com

Visit:

https://www.uk.mercer.com/what-

we-do/financial-planning.html

This brochure outlines the scope of the

main advisory services we offer employees.

In addition, Mercer Financial Planning are

able to provide additional specialised ad-

vice outside of financial planning to meet

your wider objectives from Financial Plan-

ners based across the country.

MFP 20/050