The latest offerings in investments, such as funds and structured products, and other notable developments.

Downing
Keeping up with vaccine rollouts and new COVID strains has created a nation of amateur scientists and put healthcare firmly in the spotlight.

Into this momentum Downing is adding a new healthcare EIS to its tax-efficient investment products.The Downing Healthcare EIS Knowledge Intensive fund invests in early stage growth companies in the healthcare space and is aimed primarily at high net worth investors.

Due to increased demand for healthcare investing in light of the pandemic, and a desire to boost support for healthcare innovation, Downing is reducing the usual minimum investment from £15,000 to £5,000, the firm said, on an expected holding period of four to eight years.

Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS) offer investors 30 per cent income tax relief on investments if held for three years or more, with any profits free of capital gains. They allow investors relief in the same tax year in which the investment is made and carry it back to the previous tax year.

To date, Downing has invested around £27 million in healthcare and life sciences start-ups, with the UK being an important hub.

Will Brooks, investment director for the sector, said they expect a number of areas to experience excellent growth: "These include personalised medicine shaped by genomics, cell therapies and digital health, as well as hardware and artificial intelligence innovations that will help push out diagnostics to the point of care."

Beringea
Beringea, a venture capital firm and lender to UK small- and medium-sized enterprises, has launched the Beringea Estate Planning Service.

The discretionary portfolio service aims to give investors a “consistent level of return” through investing in private trading companies that are expected to qualify for UK Business Relief. (Business Relief cuts the value of a business or its assets when working out how much inheritance tax has to be paid.)

The service has been designed to provide UK investors with a managed portfolio of investments in trading companies that are expected to qualify for Business Relief. The Estate Planning Service will allow investors to gain access to companies either providing secured loans to UK SMEs or owning and operating solar power plants in the UK. The service will seek to provide a growth rate between 4-5 per cent per year after charges, while aiming to achieve capital preservation for investors.

Beringea has a track record of more than two decades of investing in private companies, managing the ProVen Venture Capital Trusts. The ProVen VCTs manage more than £238 million ($329.5 million) in funds with investments in more than 45 unquoted companies.