Renewable energy -- the gift that keeps on giving
An innovative investment platform allowing contributions of as little as £5 in green energy projects has launched a new service encouraging bonds to be given to children or newly-wed couples as presents.
Abundance Generation raises money for community renewable energy schemes by offering debentures – a type of bond issued by an individual project. In return, the project commits to pay the member a share of the profits it makes generating green energy.
Until now investors have only been able to buy Abundance’s debentures for themselves or go through a complicated process of setting up a trust fund if they wanted to invest for their children.
But Abundance launched a free service on Friday that is designed to make it easier to gift investments.
Karl Harder, co-founder and director of Abundance, told BusinessGreen that a number of people have wanted to buy debentures for their children and grandchildren since its first project was launched earlier this year.
“Our new service provides the perfect way to start spreading the ownership of renewable energy,” he said. “More urgently than ever we need to build a positive lobby for the industry, there is no better way of achieving that than building the number of people invested in the sector.”
Investors can now set up a bare trust account for children at no extra cost, allowing the ownership of the debenture to be transferred to the child and potentially offering tax savings for recipients.
“Setting up trust funds is one of the most archaic bits of English law, so we haven’t been able to make it quite as simple as we’d like,” explained Harder. “You still need to complete the details on paper rather than online, and find witnesses, but our process is relatively simple.”
Investors looking for a more simple process can also set up a designated account online, in which the buyer retains ownership of the cash and bonds in the account.
At the moment investors will only be able to gift debentures that they purchased within the last 14 days. However, after January next year, Abundance expects that any debenture will be eligible for transfer.
Abundance Generation raises money for community renewable energy schemes by offering debentures – a type of bond issued by an individual project. In return, the project commits to pay the member a share of the profits it makes generating green energy.
Until now investors have only been able to buy Abundance’s debentures for themselves or go through a complicated process of setting up a trust fund if they wanted to invest for their children.
But Abundance launched a free service on Friday that is designed to make it easier to gift investments.
Karl Harder, co-founder and director of Abundance, told BusinessGreen that a number of people have wanted to buy debentures for their children and grandchildren since its first project was launched earlier this year.
“Our new service provides the perfect way to start spreading the ownership of renewable energy,” he said. “More urgently than ever we need to build a positive lobby for the industry, there is no better way of achieving that than building the number of people invested in the sector.”
Investors can now set up a bare trust account for children at no extra cost, allowing the ownership of the debenture to be transferred to the child and potentially offering tax savings for recipients.
“Setting up trust funds is one of the most archaic bits of English law, so we haven’t been able to make it quite as simple as we’d like,” explained Harder. “You still need to complete the details on paper rather than online, and find witnesses, but our process is relatively simple.”
Investors looking for a more simple process can also set up a designated account online, in which the buyer retains ownership of the cash and bonds in the account.
At the moment investors will only be able to gift debentures that they purchased within the last 14 days. However, after January next year, Abundance expects that any debenture will be eligible for transfer.
You can return to the main Market News page, or press the Back button on your browser.
