If you have a UK personal pension or other defined contribution pension scheme, your UK pension fund will normally have to purchase a pension annuity in retirement. This means that you exchange your accumulated pension fund for an annual pension which ceases on your death (or in some cases on the death of your spouse). Annuity rates are based on gilt yields, which are historically low at present (2009). SYNERGY in contrast has no annuity requirement. If you transfer your UK pension to SYNERGY, your fund before and after retirement remains invested exactly the way you (and your investment adviser) want it. Pension is payable to you by annual drawdown of income and capital from your pension fund. You never, ever have to buy an annuity. And unlike with an annuity, your pension fund does not die with you.

If you transfer your UK pension into SYNERGY, at retirement - which is when you decide (between the ages of 50¹ and 75) -you can take a tax-free lump sum of up to 25% of your fund.

If you are no longer UK-resident for tax purposes, you will certainly not wish for UK or other tax to be deducted at source from your pension.

SYNERGY meets this requirement: provided you are not Channel Island-resident, your SYNERGY pension is paid to you free of tax, in accordance with the exemption under section 40(ee) of the Income Tax (Guernsey) Law 1975.

You may have a liability to tax on your pension in your own country of residence, depending upon your personal situation.

Even if you have left the UK, your UK pension continues to be subject to UK tax laws and restrictions if it remains in the UK. In this respect, the UK Government “will not allow the pension tax rules to be used ... to allow the inheritance of ... pension savings”. For this reason UK tax law bears heavily upon UK pension schemes: any attempt to hand a UK pension fund down to family or other beneficiaries on death can attract combined UK income tax and inheritance tax charges of up to 82%.

SYNERGY however is a non-UK pension scheme. Transfer of a non-resident member’s pension fund on death to another family member does not attract the same penal UK tax charges applicable to UK pension schemes.

SYNERGY offers the widest possible investment choice associated with a SIPP. Investment management can either be self-directed by the member or delegated to an investment manager appointed by the member. Please refer to page 5 for further information on investment choice.

1. Minimum retirement age increases to 55 from 6 April 2010.