The specialist SIPP provider charges can be as low as £350 per annum, with no set up fee. Advisor charges and ancillary investment charges are separate. However, the scope of investment will open up new opportunities for many investors, previously put off by SIPP charges for specialist business investment mechanisms.

The investments most commonly interacting with a SIPP investors business are:

• Commercial Property Purchase
• Intellectual Property Purchase (i.e. TM, domain name, patent)
• Share Purchase

Commercial property purchases and share purchases have been available through SIPP’s with low charges, it is the ability to invest in Intellectual property which has traditionally been associated with higher charges. The ability to purchase intellectual property from a business or individual enables asset value with a business to grow in tax efficient wrapper, whist providing a cash injection through the intellectual property purchase. This could make investment interaction with a SIPP a valuable funding mechanism in the current economic climate.

Whilst charges are now making SIPP intellectual property investments more attractive, it is important to seek professional advice. Tax implications and the specifics of an individual business will all determine if this is an appropriate SIPP investment.

If you would like further information and advice on how to maximise the potential for SIPP business interaction, please contact us.

Low cost SIPP’s are a cost effective and tax efficient form of retirement planning. In the past, Low cost SIPP’s have been limited in their investment choices in order to achieve their low cost charging structures. A full SIPP which can allow investments to interact the members businesses, have until now been tailored to the individual and therefore more expensive to setup and administer. Higher costs reflected the fact that investment in a business asset is unique to the individual SIPP and not an open market investment open to all.

A small number of SIPP providers have now developed the capability to utilise Low costs SIPP’s for business owners and the self employed, which can fully interact with business and personal assets. These low cost SIPP’s can be syndicated to enable 2 or more low cost SIPP’s to interact with a single investment.

These investment choices include:

• Intellectual Property Purchase (i.e. TM, domain name and patents)
• Commercial Property Purchase
• Share Purchase

Low cost SIPPs facilitating these business focused investments, can now be facilitated by low cost SIPP providers with no set up fee and an annual administration charges of £350 or less. This is making low Cost SIPPS for business investment purposes a more viable mechanism for business owners to utilise. Low cost SIPP investors must however must consider advisory, legal and valuation fees within the low cost SIPP, these will be similar to fees for investing outside of the low cost SIPP.

A key benefit for business owners is that low cost SIPP’s can now provide cash flow to businesses through their investment flexibility, giving businesses greater financial freedom and opportunity. Low cost SIPP’s investing in business assets also offer active management of retirement planning, aiding a diverse retirement portfolio.

For information and advice regarding low cost SIPP’s, please contact us.

SIPP pensions are becoming an increasingly popular type of pension. The low cost of SIPP pensions and their flexibility of investment choice, mean that pension savers are able to tailor SIPP pensions to their own particular needs.

Whilst low cost SIPP pensions are attractive to individual pension savers, they can be limited by the scope of investment flexibility a SIPP pension provider allows. SIPP pensions for businesses and the self employed have until now had much higher SIPP provider costs, in the main due to the nature of investments that can interact with a business. They are typically unique investments to an individual SIPP pension, as opposed to a 3rd party market based transaction of a standard SIPP Pension.

These investment choices include:

• Intellectual Property Purchase (i.e. TM, domain name and patents)
• Commercial Property Purchase
• Share Purchase

The changing SIPP pensions market has seen some providers charge no set up fee, along with annual fees of £350 or less for the administration of the SIPP pension. This makes a SIPP pension a very attractive vehicle to utilise within a business and for pension planning. There will be associated costs such as advisory, legal and valuation fees with these SIPP pension investments, however, these fees will typically reflect the cost of the same investment outside of a SIPP pension.

This use of SIPP pensions can be extremely advantages to businesses as the SIPP pension can facilitate a cash injection into a business, reducing the reliance upon 3rd party business funding. It may also be possible to syndicate a SIPP pension to enable 2 or more individual SIPP pensions to invest in a business asset. Using SIPP pensions in this way also places greater emphasis on pensions for the SIPP pension member. This can have a positive long term effect on pension saving and aid diversification in retirement planning.

For information and advice regarding SIPP pensions, please contact us.

For sole traders and business owners, retirement and pension schemes may not be as important as the success of their business. However, retirement and pension schemes are a vital part of planning an exit strategy and without advance retirement and pension scheme planning, time can be a major constraint. Many entrepreneurs do not plan for retirement using pension schemes, recent reports have suggested that 60% of Britain’s self employed do not save for retirement in pension schemes. Many entrepreneurs believe their business is their pension and key to their retirement, they therefore concentrate their investments within their businesses to build value. This can prove a very risky strategy as the future value of any business is very difficult to estimate.

Many entrepreneurs face these dilemmas as they have not diversified their wealth accordingly. Domestic Property and Business Equity are commonly the two major assets of entrepreneurs. Pension schemes are not valued by the individual and are typically from previous employment, they cannot afford to be locking away funds for retirement in pension schemes when they could invest in their business.

Retirement and pension schemes need to be given careful consideration by entrepreneurs. Pension schemes as part a diverse portfolio will be beneficial in retirement. The risk many owner directors face before retirement is that their health brings forward their retirement or, they cannot extract the value they need from their business to provide their desired standard of living in retirement.

The implications for entrepreneurs are a longer working life or lower standard of living in retirement if the value of their business or health issues detrimentally influences their retirement.

The obvious answer to reduce this risk of this situation occurring in retirement is to invest in a pension scheme. The good news for entrepreneurs is that pension schemes do not have to lock money away until retirement. There are pension schemes such a Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP) and Small Self Administered Schemes that can interact with businesses on a commercial level. Advantages of these pension schemes are:

• Commercial Loans
• Commercial Property Purchases
• Intellectual Property Purchases (TM, domain names, patents)
• Tax Efficient Saving

Utilising pension schemes to interact with a business can negate the need for third party business finance, potentially leading to financial independence. It may also be cost effective to finance a business in this way, as the costs associated with pension driven business funding can be lower than traditional 3rd party finance.

For information and advice regarding retirement, pensions and pension driven business funding, please contact us.

In the current economic climate, adequate business banking facilities are proving very difficult for many business owners to acquire. Many business banking overdraft facilities are being removed or refused and others converted to term loans by business banking managers.

Although business banking is proving an issue for many business owners, business banking does not have to be the primary form of business finance. With the right business finance structure, business banking facilities may only be required for transactional purposes. It may be possible to source business finance from alternative sources including:

• Alternative Business Loan Providers
• Asset Finance
• Pension Driven Business Funding
• Invoice/Factoring Facilities

If you require business finance and your business banking facilities cannot adequately meet your needs, please contact us and speak to one of our advisors.

Directors’ Pensions are often overlooked, the requirement to maintain funding within their businesses for cash flow and investment purposes, results in directors’ pensions being a neglected part of their retirement portfolio. Many directors’ pensions will be the value built up in their business, either the sale proceeds or dividends in retirement. However, recent times have shown that business owners relying upon their businesses as their directors pension is a high risk strategy.

Business owners do appreciate that developing a diverse retirement portfolio comprising of a directors pension, personal savings, property and business equity will reduce the risk of a reduction in living standards in retirement and forgo the need to carry on working. To address this, many business owners are investing in and utilising their directors’ pensions within their businesses. Specialist directors’ pension funds in the form of Small Self Administered Schemes (SSAS) and Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP) can interact with businesses on a commercial basis. These directors’ pensions can facilitate:

• Commercial Loans (SSAS)
• Commercial Property Purchases
• Intellectual Property Purchases (Trademarks, domain names and patents)
• Share Purchases (SIPP)

By utilising a director’s pension in this way, the director’s pension is actively managed and the invested in the personal investment interests of the business owner. For the right business and business owner, this form of director’s pension investment can provide financial independence to their business whilst actively managing the growth of their director’s pension, contributing to a diverse retirement portfolio.

For more information regarding directors’ pensions and specialist SSAS and SIPP advice, please contact us.

Pension funding is an important part of a retirement portfolio. Many people will have property and personal savings to rely upon as they try to maintain their standard of living during the transition into and throughout retirement. Business owners will also have the value they have built in their businesses to supplement their pension funding.

Pension funding can be complicated for many business owners as pension legislation is continually evolving and business needs take priority. This for many business owners can detract from the need for pension funding, leaving many business owners pension funding far short of the levels necessary to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

For business owners, there are pension funding opportunities that with the correct long term advice can provide pension funding opportunities able to interact with their businesses. These pension funding investments include:

• Business loans
• Commercial property purchases
• Intellectual property purchases (ie – Trademarks, domain names and patents)
• Share purchases

This sophisticated pension funding advice for business owners has proved invaluable to many business owners throughout the banking crisis and recession. The opportunity to interact pension funding with their businesses has enabled business owners to maintain cash flow and working capital facilities, at a time when many banks and third party financiers are unable to help.

The utilisation of pension funding as a business funding mechanism can have a positive impact on long term pension funding, with the aim of achieving the required level of pension funding at retirement to meet retirement needs.

For more information and pension funding advice for business owners, please contact us.

SIPP investments provide increased flexibility over person pension plan investment choices, making them a popular choice of pension scheme. Individual SIPP investments are undertaken for varying reasons, but in the main because the SIPP investor has investment knowledge and understands the risk, reward and volatility associated with specific SIPP investments.

Many business owners save in part for their retirement through SIPP investments, a greater understanding of the risk and volatility of investing are part of business ownership, in many cases this gives business owners the confidence to undertake more volatile and risky SIPP investments. However, a specific group of SIPP investments very few business owners are aware of are the SIPP investments which interact with their business. Most business owners are aware of SIPP investments in commercial property, but there are two more commonly advised upon SIPP investments able to make funding available to businesses:

1. Share Purchase – SIPP investments can be used to purchase company shares, providing working capital to a business, gaining value through the ongoing success of the business.

2. Intellectual Property Purchase – Trademarks, domain names and patents can all be utilised as SIPP investments, again providing a business with working capital from the sale of the asset, with the SIPP profiting from associated lease agreements.

Many business owners are turning to SIPP investments as part of their corporate financial planning, as SIPP investments can provide a powerful business funding mechanism that does not rely upon the banks and other third party financiers.

For the right business, SIPP investments in the investors own business may reduce the level of risk and volatility associated with SIPP investments whilst producing known rewards. For more information and advice regarding SIPP investments, please contact us.

There have been many pension changes recently, for most owner directors, the most high profile pension changes will be in respect of employee pension changes and the arrival of NEST, or, a suitably advised alternative. Business owners also have the opportunity to make valuable pension changes to benefit themselves through greater interaction with their pension funds. Pension changes which can enable pension fund investment within their business. This ability is not new, however, it is becoming more relevant to a wider audience of business owners in the current economic climate.

The use of a SIPP or SSAS pension changes the scope of pension investment opportunity available to business owners. For the right business, meeting criteria set out in legislation, business owners can make investment choices which will have a direct impact on upon their business as well as their pension fund. Some of the main business funding investment mechanisms include:

• Commercial Loan (SSAS)
• Commercial Property Purchase
• Intellectual Property Purchase (ie – TM and Domain Name)
• Share Purchase (SIPP)

The pension changes the structure of finance within the business, providing greater flexibility and financial independence for business owners. Subject to specialist advice, the pension changes can facilitate multiple business investment interactions within company and provide a very powerful tax mitigation mechanism under current legislation.

In the current economic climate, many owner directors are finding that a reduced reliance upon third party funding is essential in providing stability. A SSAS or SIPP can aid this whilst their pensions are receiving known returns from the investment of scheme assets within their business.

For more information and specialist SSAS and SIPP advice, please contact us.

Business finance loans can be essential for many businesses, providing funding for to meet the demands of cashflow and investment. There a many business finance loan providers willing to provide a business finance loan, however, in the current economic climate it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure a business finance loan.

Business banks have taken a more prudent approach to their credit criteria, Banks have also been increasing capital reserves under Basel III and going forward some commentators have muted that there will be a contraction in money supply during 2012

The experiences and the needs of business owners has seen many look for business finance loans away from the traditional banks and brokers. A popular mechanism able to provide a business finance loan is the business owners’ pension fund. Many business owners have been utilising pension schemes to provide business finance loans, in some cases, negating the need for traditional business finance loans. These tailored schemes can provide more investment choice than just a business finance loan including:

• Commercial Property Purchase
• Intellectual Property Purchase
• Share Purchase

For a business owner’s pension scheme to interact with their business, it is important to obtain professional advice from a specialist. This will ensure that the pension is the right mechanism to provide a business finance loan, it will also ensure that a business finance loan is in the best interest of the pension fund.

For more information on traditional business finance loans, pension driven business funding and to speak with a specialist advisor, please contact us.