Holding company Archives

Trade inherently holds relatively high risk compared to asset holding, so they should be in separate trust-owned companies. But how do you get the money from one to the other? Many would advise you to have them both owned by a holding company (see the article image taken from such an advisor’s website). The trading company declares its profits out via regular dividends to the holding company, which in turn lends them to the investment company. There’s no Dividends Withholding Tax when the shareholder is another company and the dividends keep the value of the trading company near nil,…

Your trading company is high risk and makes surplus money. Your investment company is low risk and wants money to invest. How should they sit in a trust structure? Not so long ago, I would have suggested that you use a holding company to create the link between the other two companies, whilst protecting the investment company from the trading company risk. The trading company declares its excess money as dividends to the holding company and no Dividends Withholdings Tax is levied because the shareholder is a company and not an individual or trust. The holding company then…

I’ve always believed in keeping it simple and encouraged clients to rather have common shareholders in separate companies than have a holding company in which the various parties own shares. But there’s one clear exception – Let’s say you have a very profitable company in a high risk business and the company is owned by your trust. Is the trust at risk? No, but the profits are stuck in the company unless it declares dividends to the trust. So now, after the deduction of the Dividends Witholding Tax (DWT at 20%), the trust sits with 80% of the cash. What…

Holding company

How trading and asset holding companies should be connected within a trust

How to structure your trading and investment companies within your trust

When is a holding company a good idea?