19th October 2022

Healthy dividends 

UK listed companies paid out £37bn in shareholder dividends between April and June, up 38.6% from the same period last year, making Q2 the second largest UK dividend payout on record1

Large one-off special payments were a key driver, but underlying dividends, which exclude these volatile specials, jumped by 27.0% to £32.0bn, boosted by weaker sterling.  

1LINK Group, 2022 

Pausing pensions could be costly 

Analysis2 has revealed that reducing or stopping pension contributions, even for a relatively short period of time such as a year, can have a significant impact on your final pension pot, with savers potentially being thousands of pounds less well off in retirement. Almost all (93%) of those surveyed said they are feeling the impact of increasing costs and inflation. Whilst 77% expect to have to make cutbacks on spending or saving, an encouragingly low figure of 6% said they would reduce their pension contributions. 

1Standard Life, 2022 

The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may not get back the full amount you invested. The past is not a guide to future performance and past performance may not necessarily be repeated.