Saturday Papers: Savings to fill child benefit gap - money news

Financial Times

* Wealth managers are predicting a resurgence of interest in passing on wealth to children or grandchildren now that two key government payouts to children are to be scrapped.

* Santander has launched a new cash Isa that pays an attractive initial rate of 2.85% – or 3% to savers who have a Santander mortgage, current account or investment product – and then tracks any increases in the Bank of England base rate over the following year.

* Fund managers are moving back into the scandal-hit UK life settlement market by offering a new generation of products said to “reduce or even eliminate” investor risk.

* Catalyst Investment Group, a UK distributor of life settlement investments, is to be probed by its industry body after 1,500 UK investors were caught up in a bungled bond issue.

* Investors are being advised not to increase their exposure to UK commercial property funds as the outlook for the sector worsens and income yields fall to only 3%; the latest figures from the Investment Property Databank, the benchmark property index, showed that values rose just 0.1% in August.

* Investors seeking a safer home for their cash in the wake of the Irish banking crisis should look beyond “overbought” UK gilts, say analysts and fund managers – and could even consider opportunities in bombed out Irish and Greek bonds.

* Scores of people are now “Isa millionaires” with £1 million-plus in tax-sheltered holdings – including some who have portfolios worth £12m – the Financial Times can reveal.

* A UK accountancy firm warned that wine investors could unintentionally be building up unexpected inheritance tax bills that their heirs will one day be forced to settle.

* Crispin Odey is launching a new wealth management arm charging a flat fee of 1% to address the “raw deal” that he says “bloated” wealth managers offer their clients.

* Brevan Howard, the UK’s biggest hedge fund manager, has launched a $300 million computer-driven fund to challenge some of its biggest competitors in the City -  Man Group, Winton Capital and BlueCrest.

* Moneybookers, the European online payments provider, is planning to raise about £200 million by floating on the London Stock Exchange in the next few months.