60,000 to invest

I have 60k to either invest,deposit or a combo of both.Are there any obvious investments tha will provide me with a better return then a deposit?

The higher the hoped for return, the higher the risk. Simple as that really. You might be best talking the matter over with a stockbroker re ETFs or other financial products. Do not invest your money in Investment funds as any growth will simply go in charges.

Most important -- do your own research before you end up beating yourself up for not taking financial precautions.

Have you thought of a BES investment?

Rather than invest in an institution where you dont know what happens to your money including how much goes on administration charges, perhaps a BES investment might suit you. You can invest either into a fund, there are 4 of them in Ireland or directly into a company if you know one which looking for investment. Either way, I know you could do enough research to get familiar with the promoters involved and suss out how risky the investment is. One of the main attractions is that you get tax relief in the year you are investing so for example if you invested say 30,000 and your marginal tax rate is 30% then you will get a refund of 9,000 back from the revenue. If you invested say in a fund which was well spread across a number of companies then you probably have a good chance of your capital also being returned after the 5 year term. That would be a return of 6% per annum (30% divided by 5 years) which is well above deposit rates. Hope that helps.

The failure of BES schemes is immense/ Do not touch them with a barge pole. Have yet to learn of any in the past 10 years that have shown any type of decent profit. be warned -- keep your money in your pocket.

mercman said:

The failure of BES schemes is immense/ Do not touch them with a barge pole. Have yet to learn of any in the past 10 years that have shown any type of decent profit. be warned -- keep your money in your pocket.

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whats a bes scheme ?

Keep your money at home, at least you will know where it is. Money is a scourge when you have it and when you havnt got it.

farmerette said:

whats a bes scheme ?

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a Business Expansion Scheme, which were set up for private investors to invest in small companies trying to expand. In return for investment a Tax credit is handed back by the Revenue for such schemes. However in many cases the companies have gone bang with the hoped for investment gone up in smoke.

As bessa put it, you are better holding on to your money than to invest in such schemes. 'A fool and their money is easily parted.'

mapmc said:

I have 60k to either invest,deposit or a combo of both.Are there any obvious investments tha will provide me with a better return then a deposit?

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To get a better return than a deposit you need to invest in riskier assets than deposits. You also need to decide how much of your 60k you intend to leave in deposits and how much you intend to invest in riskier assets. Then you need to decide your allocation between riskier assets [which should ideally be done via low cost ETFs and not funds.] As to what your allocation in risky assets should be, you could profitable look at this post by Merbane Faber [broken link removed] that summarizes a range of asset allocations from respected investment gurus. There are in USD so you need to play around with them to determine what the equivalents would be from the perspective of a EUR investor. [Disclaimer: The above is comment / observation and is not a recommendation to follow any particular investment strategy or to buy / not buy any particular fund or stock.]

invest your cash in non irish banks until such time the current crisis subsides.

The Business Expansion Scheme has gotten bad press in the past not but this is unfair to the mainstream of companies and funds who seek to raise money using the scheme.

Some investors have had a bad experience and where some investments have failed has been for the following reasons:

1) Focus on one company only. Investing in a single company is like putting all your money on black. The alternative is to invest in a fund. In this way the fund diversifies your risk across a number of companies and then the good compensate for the poor returns.

2) Validation. Are there other investors / institutions investing with you in the company or fund. Enterprise Ireland often will certify a company for BES investment but furthermore it's worth asking are they investing in the company too. This will help the investor validate the credentials of the company.

3) Uncapped returns. A lot of BES investments and funds only offer capped returns which is unfair given the level of risk involved. Other BES's do offer uncapped returns which means the investors share all the growth and are treated much better as shareholders in the company.

4) Dont just focus on the tax relief. Find out about what sector the company is in (is it likely to grow) and in particular is the company or companies trading internationally. Given the unfortunate state of our own country ,we all know Irish companies need to be exporting to grow.

Lastly, if you do pick a good company or a good fund it might actually be a chance for you as an investor to make some money and also help support a successful Irish company.

elliott said:

Lastly, if you do pick a good company or a good fund it might actually be a chance for you as an investor to make some money and also help support a successful Irish company.

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Your choice of words leave an awful lot to be desired. "if" "you pick" "might" "help support". This not a lucky dip - we are talking about ordinary Joe investing his / her hard earned money.

Show me a single BES project or fund that has done well in the past 10 years. The days and time for persuading people to invest in a game of charades have long gone.

BES schemes are Very High Risk with a Tax benefit -- nothing else. Please do not try and confuse people with dreams. Things are hard enough without trying to ask people to gamble their savings in a structure of pastures which stink.