Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs)

Investing in a VCT is a relatively simple way of getting exposure to a portfolio of young and ambitious companies. Each VCT typically invests in 30-100 such companies. If one of them is very successful, early investors could reap significant rewards. If a company fails, as is to be expected when investing at this early stage, portfolio diversification and tax relief could help mitigate the impact.

When you invest in a VCT, you can receive up to 20% income tax relief (up to £40k if using the full £200k yearly allowance). Any growth is tax free and so are any dividends the VCT pays – dividends are variable and not guaranteed. This could make VCTs particularly attractive to wealthier investors looking to supplement their income tax efficiently or unable to contribute large amounts to a pension.

When you invest through Wealth Club, you normally save on the initial charge (this is shown as “Wealth Club saving” in our VCT reviews and means you will receive more shares).

In addition, for most VCTs, we share with investors the commission we receive. This is the “rebate”: it is usually up to 0.15% (the percentage varies by VCT and is in our VCT reviews) and is payable for three years, subject to terms. So, you usually get a better deal investing through us than going direct.

We also make it easier to manage your investments through our Portal, where you can usually see the investments you make through Wealth Club, latest valuation and any related documents.

Featured offers – marked with a small gold “W” – are the current offers with the most investment merit, in our view. Think of it as a shortlist of offers we would choose if we were to pick just a handful of investments of that type from what is available at the time, assessed using a quantitative and qualitative filtering process. We do this to help you make your own considered investment decisions. It is not a personal recommendation to invest.

As soon as we receive your application, we’ll acknowledge it and send it to the provider, who will match it with your payment. You will receive further confirmations once your application has been accepted and when your shares are allotted. Depending on when you invest and the allotment schedule of the VCT(s), this could take from a few days to several weeks from allotment. You can monitor the status of your application in the Wealth Club Portal.