Our roundtable of financial advisers consider what they would like to see change in the EIS market
Richard Meats, Tudor Franklin Independent Financial Advice: It would make life easier if things were transparent, and we were able to look through the different managers’ offerings on a level playing field. So clarity of charges is important. Having said that, advisers like us have built up knowledge and expertise in this area, so that helps us stand out.
Nicholas Toubkin, Strabens Hall: Whilst there has been a move towards transparency, especially around fees, I would like to see even greater transparency and alignment of fee structures amongst providers.
Kevin Wilks, Financial Resolutions: One thing is for there to be more focus from fund managers on the needs of the end investor. I sometimes feel that everything is done to benefit the fund and the investee companies, with little thought for the people supplying the investment. I would like to see fund managers improve their investee company progress reporting, whilst better illustrating fee transparency and how this translates to the projected net returns expected at exit. I would like to see more lobbying by the industry against HMRC and the continuing problems and delays with the latter issuing tax certificates, as well as challenging the revenue on the constant changing of goalposts on EIS tax relief eligibility in certain ‘hot’ sectors such as media. I would like all charges to be levied on the investee companies rather than the investor, because some fund managers don’t seem to put enough importance on the negative impact that investor fees have on their reduced income tax relief claims.
Chris Clarke, Partners Wealth Management: I would like to see the usual independent report writers executing more due diligence; for example, going in and looking at the underlying data and being more robust in the analysis of that. I would like to have better auditing of figures and data supplied, but I recognise that this is expensive.
This article forms part of the Adviser Roundtable first published in the Enterprise Investment Scheme Industry Report 2019/20. To see the advisers’ views on a range of other EIS matters, as well as all the information contained in the full report, click here to download a free copy