09/12/2020
Day 9 of Advent Challenge by Partners in Property
I have received several messages asking me to expand on my yesterday’s post regarding benefits of using SSAS so I provide a more detailed illustration based on my structure in LEATHERHEAD High Street.
If you are not a numbers person I apologise:)
1. By buying a commercial unit into my SSAS I reduced both GDV and project costs by £350,000.
2. Profits however remained unchanged as commercial unit does not change use and does not contribute to the value creation. As a result both profit on costs and profit on GDV increased by c. 5% in my case.
3. Profitable deal looks more attractive to lenders; also some lenders don’t like commercial elements. In my case restructuring improved the proposed terms by c. 2% p.a., which is very material on £1.5m borrowing for 18 months.
4. Lenders still work out the loan amount as % of GDV so the gross loan capacity went down by 65% of £350,000 so £227,500. Interest facility also reduced accordingly so the net loan advance went down my only 53% of £350,000 so by £185,500.
5. Since my SSAS contributed £350,000, but the day one advance only reduced by £185,500, the difference is pushed down to reduced equity requirement. As a result of this restructure equity layer went down by £164,500. We all know how expensive equity can be and in my case it was c. 30% of the total equity requirement.
6. Of course to get this deal agreed by your SSAS trustees you will need to make sure your SSAS is property remunerated. The beauty of SSAS is that ultimately you have the flexibility to choose where to record your profits depending on your personal circumstances.
So as per my post yesterday I hope the above demonstrates:
1. Reduced third party leverage
2. Reduced equity required
3. Enhanced returns on my pension pot
4. Increase project return
Please note the above ignores taxes and legal fees. Also I did not cover Loan Back component of my strategy, which was slightly more complicated, but ultimately impacts the deal economics in the same way:)
Thank you for reading till the end:)