Brian Moretta is the Head of Tax-Enhanced Research at Hardman & Co, and also covers Financials stocks and Investment Funds. He has had a 20-year career in Financial Services, including more than a decade as a fund manager.
Brian shares his insights and observations on the EIS and SEIS marketplace with a number of media outlets and industry platforms/publications. We have collated recent coverage to help keep you informed and increase your understanding of the tax enhanced world at the moment.
In March, SyndicateRoom invited Brian to share his approach to reviewing and selecting an EIS fund on the Angel Insights podcast. With a wealth of experience in picking apart EIS and venture capital trusts, Brian discusses how he approaches reviewing a fund, analysing if it has the correct structure in place, looking at how it is different to other funds in the market and, finally, understanding the investment process.
As a leading voice on tax enhanced products, Brian hosts The EIS Navigator Podcast which features an array of expert voices and interesting perspectives for investors to listen to and digest. This podcast shines a bit more light on what is going on in the world of Enterprise Investment Schemes, EIS, Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes, or SEIS, and venture capital trusts.
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In mid-April, the Financial Times reported on the amount that VCTs had raised from retail investors in the UK as the appetite for early-stage growth companies remained high following a record year in 2021-22, according to The Association of Investment Companies (AIC). Brian was quoted in the article, commenting on the economic outlook and how the potential uncertainty within the markets may impact what fund managers do in the next 12 months if investors’ attention moves away from VCTs.
Brian spoke to Dr Paul Mattick of Mercia Asset Management PLC about his white paper that shows how EIS and VCT can boost the expected IRRs of venture capital investments, almost doubling them in some cases. They discuss best practices and tips on investing in these schemes and how tax reliefs from EIS and VCT can boost returns.
SyndicateRoom recently published a piece looking at how investors can introduce venture capital into a portfolio and benefit from an increased return whilst limiting any change to the risk profile.
A key question around this topic is how to find the balance in a portfolio between increasing the performance and maintaining a risk profile. Brian’s findings in his 2021 white paper, How much should clients invest in venture capital?, highlight that investors with normal risk profiles (equity:bond portfolios that are between 60:40 and 80:20), who add an appropriate proportion of venture capital (10-20%), can add 0.5-1% to expected annual returns without increasing overall portfolio risk, even without any tax reliefs.
In June, Brian joined an expert panel on Octopus Investment’s webinar to discuss Consumer Duty and how this affects client outcomes. The panel considered what advisers must consider to deliver good customer outcomes, how they can evidence fair price and value, and how tax-efficient investments fit in.
At Hardman & Co, we work with providers of EIS products to produce independent reviews. We use our wide experience across all market sectors to give insight and context to the investments that we review.
