Spencer Lodge MD Fund Advisers Dubai fund-advisers.com. Spencer Lodge has been at the pinnacle of international financial services sales and management for over 18 years. His company Fund Advisers are one of the leading financial services companies in the Middle East.
The common question that gets asked
in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question
is, ‘why not?’ -Jeffrey Bezos
Spencer Lodge
I’ve
missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times
I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over
and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
Spencer Lodge Fund Advisers
Every
strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth
Right Now is the Best Time
to Start Planning For Your Retirement by Spencer Lodge.
Spencer Lodge is Managing
Director at Dubai based Fund Advisers, one of the leading independent financial
services company in the United Arab Emirates. A self confessed workaholic, he
has been operating at the very top of the international financial industry for
over 18 years working for such organisations as the deVere Group and deVere and Partners.
Spencer Lodge
We chat with Spencer Lodge to get
some great independent financial advice for expats, talk about life after deVere and Partners and his plans to grow Fund
Advisers in to a leading worldwide financial consultancy.
Here’s what he said aboutWhen
is the Best Time to Start Planning For Your Retirement?
They say the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, and the
second best is right now. However young you are it is important to understand
the negative impact that not planning properly for your retirement will have on
you and your family. Even if you have just started your working life, it is
essential to start thinking about making regular contributions to set you up for
the future. The
younger you start to contribute to your pension, the more
opportunity you will have to secure yourself an enjoyable retirement.
Unfortunately for those starting out in their career now, their
retirement outlook looks bleak. They could be facing an uncertain future
relying on company pensions instead of taking steps for themselves to secure a
sizeable personal pension. As a result of the global downturn many pension
schemes have huge deficits, meaning that a number of companies are closing
final salary schemes
and even the majority of existing schemes have major solvency
issues.
It pays to start thinking about your retirement options as soon as
possible to ensure that you have enough to live on when you start drawing your
pension. For example, if a 25 year old and a 35 year old started saving towards
retirement with the aim to retire at 55, the 25 year old could invest £300 a
month, while to create the same return, the 35 year old would have to save £803
a month.
You may feel that your retirement is a long way off and that you do
not really need to think about it just yet. However, if you look at your
pension in terms of how many pay days remain until your retirement at 55, you
will see that you do not have long remaining to save an adequate amount.
About Fund Advisers
Fund Advisers is a large independent financial consultancy group
with global operations
We work with international investors and expatriates to find
financial services products that best suit their medium to long-term requirements
for investments, savings and pensions.
With in excess of US $2 billion of funds under administration and
management, Fund Advisers has more than six thousand clients in twenty
countries. Our independence and ability to offer financial products that are
tailor-made to fit an individual’s needs are behind our success, and our work
ethic is without equal in the industry
As a result we now have offices in over six countries. You can find
us in Abu Dhabi, Geneva, Johannesburg, Dubai, London, Brussels and Moscow among
others.
Fund Advisers are a regulated, independent financial advisory wealth
management brokerage. We are fully regulated within the territories where we
have permanent offices.
deVere is a trading
name of deVere and Partners (UK) Ltd
Spencer Lodge is Managing
Director of Fund Advisers and is widely recognized one of the leading financial
advisers for the female expatriate community here in the United Arab Emirates.
We asked him about pension planning provision for women already here in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
If you continue to pay your contributions towards your state pension
and decide to move abroad to somewhere like Abu
Dhabi or Dubai, then it could prove problematic when investing for your
retirement. You can continue to pay class 2/3 contributions to the UK state
pension scheme, but your final entitlement will almost certainly not keep you
in a luxury lifestyle in your retirement years.
Another issue is that the age of retirement for state pensions will
be rising in the coming years, meaning that you will have to work beyond the
current 65 year old threshold. On the other hand, if you do not continue to pay
contributions into your UK state pension (since you don’t have to if you move
abroad), then this could potentially reduce your entitlement completely. This
would mean that you would have to start saving towards your pension through
other means if you have not been investing already. In order to overcome these
problems with state pensions, you will need to start saving or investing
towards your retirement as early as possible.
Women Will Benefit From
Saving
Whether you live in the UK, Abu Dhabi
or Dubai, It is a hard reality to consider, but statistically, one marriage in
two will end in divorce, and women who have not planned for their retirement
could end up with nothing to live on. So do you rely on your husband to support
you through your retirement years, or will you start saving and investing in
your own pension fund for yourself?
Only about 20% of all women will receive an adequate pension when
they retire. The large majority of women are approaching retirement without any
financial security measures in place leaving them open to potential hardship
should their marriage break down. Even in this day and age, a woman’s earnings
will typically be much less than any man’s meaning that they will automatically
have lower pension benefits. That is, if a woman has a pension in the first
place. Around 50% of working women do not have a company pension plan and are
less likely than a man to receive an adequate pension.
So, what can you do to
ensure that you are financially secure when you retire?
Start planning your pension while you are young and begin investing
as much as you can each month into your future pension fund. Although your
spouse will more than likely have a larger pension fund to retire on than you,
at least you have prepared for the worst with your own retirement plan. Above
all, your retirement could be more luxurious than planned.
If you are based in Abu Dhabi or Dubai and would like further
information on the range of products and services offered by Fund Advisers, please
visit www.fund-advisers.com
