Spotlight On … Clifford Knezovich – IFA

Are you yet to draw on your pension and have one or more dormant, frozen pension pots from when you were employed or self-employed? If you have had a number of jobs during your career, you could have a series of separate pension plans which, while individually may not add up to much, you are relying on to provide you with an income during your retirement.

The much talked about UK election is now well and truly behind us, how can the opinion polls have been so wrong you may be asking yourself, it had most investors worried about a hung parliament or even a Labour victory which we were led to believe would send the markets crashing down around us.

Well now you can let out a sigh of relief, or can you, the result was taken well by the UK equity markets and in the short term should provide businesses with a stable political and legislative background in which to invest for the future.

However it is debatable as to whether the UK election results will have any impact on interest rates, the Bank of England voted last week to keep the base rate at 0.50%. Official figures at the end of the last month showed the total size of the economy increased by just 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2015. That was half the 0.6 per cent growth rate seen in the previous quarter and the worst performance since late 2012 – raising fears that the recovery is running out of steam.