Offshore funds

Aidanmc

I'm looking for a good offshore fund where i can invest some euro. I'm UK resident and have some cash in Irish bank account. The regular Irish investment products are not available to non residents.
The only one i can find so far where i can invest directly is with Guinness Asset Management. They have a limited range of funds but maybe the Global Equity Income fund would suit.
Any know of reliable offshore fund manager?
thanks

System

With a global equity fund it makes no difference if you buy it with Euros or Pounds so make life simple and buy it through a UK broker/platform.

Aidanmc

Economic wrote: »

With a global equity fund it makes no difference if you buy it with Euros or Pounds so make life simple and buy it through a UK broker/platform.

Thanks, yes i could do this. But i would like to keep a separate euro fund, im actually based in Northern Ireland and having euro could be useful at some point.

bowlhead99

Aidanmc wrote: »

Thanks, yes i could do this. But i would like to keep a separate euro fund, im actually based in Northern Ireland and having euro could be useful at some point.

But is there any reason why it needs to be an 'offshore' fund, and do you mean 'offshore' just meaning non-Ireland domiciled (so e.g. UK or Luxembourg is fine but Ireland is not) or non-UK domiciled (so eg Ireland or Luxembourg is fine but UK is not), or non UK domiciled and non Ireland domiciled (so Luxembourg is fine but UK or Ireland is not)?

Is the reason you want it to be "offshore" because you are not UK domiciled yourself and don't want to bring the cash into the UK because you're paying UK income tax on your worldwide income and gains on the remittance basis, so both UK brokers and UK funds are out because the money can't come into the UK?

An example of a global exchange traded fund that could be bought in Euros is iShares Core MSCI World UCITS ETF:

https://www.ishares.com/uk/individual/en/products/251882/ishares-msci-world-ucits-etf-acc-fund . It's an Irish domiciled ETF and is available to EU residents.

On the London stock exchange it trades under the ticker SWDA (for the version priced in pounds) or IWDA (for the version priced in dollars). However it's also available on Euronext Amsterdam under the ticker IWDA (priced in Euros) and on Xetra (Deutsche Bourse) under EUNL (priced in Euros).

So, any broker that can buy ETFs in London could buy you the pound or dollar version, but you'd incur a currency conversion cost if you wanted to pay in Euros ; while a broker that can buy ETFs in Frankfurt or Amsterdam would let you pay Euros without currency conversion, as long as they have a facility to receive Euros from you (which not all UK brokers do).

Another popular Irish domiciled global fund which offers a EURO class of shares is Lindsell Train Global Equity
https://www.lindselltrain.com/funds/lindsell-train-global-equity-fund.aspx

As it's an open ended fund rather than something listed for trading on a stock exchange, it has to be bought through a normal fund distribution channel (fund platform / fund supermarket) rather than a stockbroker. My usual platform only shows Class D (GBP version) available, I haven't asked them if they would let me buy the class E (Euro version) as I'd have no use for it.

As was mentioned up thread, with either of these global funds you will get the same underlying return whether you choose to buy the version that shows a GBP or EUR or USD price, because the assets it holds are the same however it chooses to display its price- your money gets invested in international companies like Heineken, Nintendo, Microsoft etc. The only reason to favour buying them in Euro rather than GBP is to avoid the one-off cost of flipping your Euros into pounds before you start and then back again at the end. If that's only two or three percent for the 'round trip', it is not much in the context of the fund performance maybe doubling or halving your money over the course of a decade.

Aidanmc

Yes, it would be require to be non UK domiciled as i cannot transfer cash from an Irish Bank account to a UK based broker/platform without changing the currency to GBP. I want to be able to use the irish bank account to fund the investment so needs to be offshore.
I tried to open an account with Keytrade bank in Luxembourg as they also do investment products but my application was declined and they refused to give me a reason.

bowlhead99

I added a bit more to the above post while you were replying.

From your latest comment - in essence your need for an 'offshore' broker or an 'offshore' fund is only motivated by a desire to not change the Euros into pounds along the way to your investment - but not because you specifically need to keep the money outside the UK for income tax reasons, inheritance tax planning reasons, etc.

As this is a UK-centric forum you won't find many people here with experience of funding EUR investments in EUR with brokers or fund platforms outside the UK. But if there's no tax or regulatory reason why you can't bring your money into the UK, have you actually done an exhaustive search of all the mainstream UK brokers to see if you can fund your account in EUR?

I used to use TD Direct Investing (now rebranded as interactive investor ; iii.co.uk) and they have multi currency account facilities so I held money in USD, HKD and EUR with them. I never actually funded the account in dollars or Euro but they would let me hold those currencies when I received them from investment disposals or dividends. Try them or IG.com ?

Voyager2002

bowlhead99 wrote: »

I used to use TD Direct Investing (now rebranded as interactive investor ; iii.co.uk) and they have multi currency account facilities so I held money in USD, HKD and EUR with them. I never actually funded the account in dollars or Euro but they would let me hold those currencies when I received them from investment disposals or dividends. Try them or IG.com ?

Me too.

You could also check out Fineco, whose platform offers a rather limited range of ITs and ETFs traded on main European and US markets, and since they function as a multi-currency bank they do allow you to fund the account in Euro: that is something that I have done.

You could also look at Internaxx in Luxemburg, although their high fees would probably cost you more than the saving on not doing a currency conversion and investing through a UK platform.

Aidanmc

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Me too.

You could also check out Fineco, whose platform offers a rather limited range of ITs and ETFs traded on main European and US markets, and since they function as a multi-currency bank they do allow you to fund the account in Euro: that is something that I have done.

You could also look at Internaxx in Luxemburg, although their high fees would probably cost you more than the saving on not doing a currency conversion and investing through a UK platform.

Fineco looks suitable alright, it combines banking and investing in one model. The multi currency account has no fees either and the fees to trade seem to be £6.95. I cant see what actual etfs are available yet, but will look more later.
Thanks a lot

Voyager2002

Aidanmc wrote: »

Fineco looks suitable alright, it combines banking and investing in one model. The multi currency account has no fees either and the fees to trade seem to be £6.95. I cant see what actual etfs are available yet, but will look more later.
Thanks a lot

If you do open an account with them, please use someone's referral code (look on the referer's board) for an extra hundred pounds each. And do make sure that they offer the investments that you want: they do not do Unit Trusts/Mutual Funds.