Wealth Beyond Borders: What Comes After Building Your Property Portfolio?

Transcript

kevin whelan (00:00.984)
Hello and welcome to another episode of WellTalk, the podcast designed to help you build, protect and transfer your wealth to the next generation. And today I've got two amazing guests and we're going to be talking about, well, many, many things, but particularly as we hit conference season right now, we we had Jeremy Clarkson talk about why would anybody, why would anybody

Ranjan Bhattacharya (00:27.458)
Hmm hmm hmm.

kevin whelan (00:29.41)
be in business here in the UK. And we're seeing a lot more people talking about freedom of location, geographical mobility. And to talk about that, we've got two guests today. They'll probably be known to you, but if they're not, I'll ask them to speak about their background, and then we'll talk a little bit more about this geographical and wealth beyond board idea. So first of all, I'm going to introduce Ranjan Bhattacharya.

and Emmanuel Ezekiel. So Ranjan, hi and welcome to the podcast.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (01:04.386)
Hello, good to be here.

kevin whelan (01:07.214)
And for most people who probably heard of you somewhere in the property circuit with your business succeeding in property and your commercial property expertise and of course the amazing Baker Street property meet which was probably the biggest property meeting in the whole of the UK at some point, wasn't it?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (01:28.14)
Yes, yes, was the largest in the UK. We used to have 300 people every month. Quite a circuit. Yes.

kevin whelan (01:32.866)
Yeah, and you're still busy, I can tell by the phone call.

just shows it's real and it's authentic and we're all in business but you know that's good but thanks for giving us your time today and give us a perspective Ranjan before we introduce Emmanuel what's been the sort of catalyst for you to be having a serious rethink of what you're doing and where you're doing it

Immanuel Ezekiel (01:40.758)
Yeah

Ranjan Bhattacharya (01:46.199)
No, but...

Ranjan Bhattacharya (01:58.339)
I think it's very, very good question. I I think for me...

When I got started in business and property, think business and property was a lot of fun. It was enjoyable. And I really, I think for at least the first 15 years of my career, government did their thing and we were allowed to do our thing. Government policy really didn't really change too much. And if it did, changed for the better.

It allowed us to do more things such as permitted development announcements and stuff like that. Whereas recently with every month that goes by there's usually some sort of announcement meaning that you can do less or you're somehow curtailed in your potential of what you can achieve. I remember when I got started in property, yes I used to watch the budget speech.

but it was mainly about how much are they putting on a pint of beer and I need to rush out and buy petrol before six o'clock before the changes come in and that was it. My business was absolutely fine in terms of adverse impact but the times have changed. The last three years in particular have been an absolute dog's breakfast. How can you run any business in the UK? And you mentioned Jeremy Clarkson, I agree with him on so many levels. How can you run any business in the UK?

if you get to June and you're in a state of paralysis because you don't know what direction to go in because every week they're leaking some news story in the press kite flying some fantasy proposal that the lefties have got in store for us seeing how the public are going to react and they may not implement half of it but what it does is it puts businesses into paralysis for the few months preceding the budget

Ranjan Bhattacharya (03:55.735)
I mean, a good example of that is the property market which is absolutely gummed up right now. Because who in their right mind is going to buy a house worth one and a half million pounds and fifty P? You don't know whether you're going to be mansion taxed for that crime of aspiring to have a better place. So that alone just gums up the property market until they announce whatever they're going to do in October.

kevin whelan (04:23.118)
Well, thanks for sharing that and of course we want to stay clear of any political observations but I think that you were politically neutral there, that all governments are the same and one might argue it's been increasingly difficult, isn't it? We've got more political shenanigans going on in different areas and I'm not going to get involved in that too much but yeah, you're right, it's definitely more difficult to plan and ever since Covid it's really been...

so difficult to really work out how to work out employing people. All we're doing really is paying more taxes, I guess, for the privilege of being in business and then paying the tax man before we get paid. But anyway, before the soapbox. Go on, please.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (04:58.338)
Mm.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (05:07.532)
But one thing I, sorry, one thing I just wanted to add to what you just said. think now more than ever in business or in property, you have to be a little bit political. You have to keep an eye on what the political trend is and the direction of travel, because they will dictate, they will set the landscape under which you can do business. And if you're just doing business in one jurisdiction, then the government of the day and the political direction of travel is so important.

Because if they say no, that's it. There's not much you can do.

kevin whelan (05:41.399)
I concur with your point and I certainly agree that we need to be aware of what's going on and be financially fleet to foot to be able to respond but so many people have had less ability to respond but people like you and Emmanuel will just bring in now have responded in your own way to allow you the exit and the opportunity to be more creative and more responsive to the way you build your wealth.

Emmanuel, welcome to the podcast.

Immanuel Ezekiel (06:11.932)
Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

kevin whelan (06:13.806)
Yeah, well I know you guys are working together so it seemed logical to get your views, both seasoned professionals in property. Why don't you share a little of your own background, Emmanuel?

Immanuel Ezekiel (06:27.954)
Mine is probably a little bit different to to Ranja and I started

a very young age as an entrepreneur, bought my first property at the age of 19. I remember that first house was 39 and a half thousand pounds. I had to go to be interviewed by a bank manager in order to actually get the mortgage. I had to go with a financial advisor hand in hand or cap in hand to request it. But it was a really good time in terms of you really didn't need to do very much to make money in property. As Rang Jan said,

the landscape was much friendlier. It was an easy place to grow. And we went through a climate, whether you think it rightly or wrongly, where if you could breathe on a pane of glass and create a bit of mist, you would get a mortgage. So those were the good old days where things worked in your favor. It was.

a great place to be. I did open and have one of the largest mortgage companies in the UK. We had about 50 brokers and learning all about finance and creativity was one of the things that allowed.

you to really expand your property portfolio very quickly. So I have quite a varied background like Ranjan. I'm an author, I've written a couple of books. The first book was The Six Steps to Financial Freedom. And if you've heard of people like Brian Tracy, he endorsed the first book. The second book I wrote during just after Covid was Wealth Beyond Money. And that's really about getting people to get balance in their health, the relationships, their finances.

Immanuel Ezekiel (08:06.34)
So yeah, we've both got slightly different varied backgrounds, but all pointing around property and helping people.

kevin whelan (08:15.054)
So tell me a little bit more about your thinking about the sort of traps that people are falling into. You mentioned the tax trap, the single asset trap and the single jurisdiction trap. Ranjan, what are your thoughts on those then? What's your take on those?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (08:36.29)
I think it's not so much my take, it's about copying and pasting from others who have trodden that path before me and before us. What has always been fascinating is if you look at the global elite. I I think a lot of us get into property because we want to generate wealth for ourselves. And when you actually do it, you are...

If you're lucky, you'll get in the top 1%. And I always say that between the top 1 % and the 99 % it's like the haves and the have-nots. But within the top 1%, there is an ocean of difference between the people at the top of the top 1 % and the people at the bottom. I call it the have-yots and the have-nots.

So when you make it into the peasant end of the top 1%, you've really got to take your cue, your guidance as to where you go next from the people who are at the top of the 1%, the top of the top of the top 1 % if that makes sense. And what do those global elite do? They are global elite. They're not tied to any one jurisdiction. They're not bothered who comes into government here and there.

They've got income and assets and businesses and bank accounts all over the world in multiple jurisdictions. They have places they can live in multiple jurisdictions. If one government decides to make an unfavourable policy and it's simply a change in their diary to spend more time in another home in another country than in London, for example, which many non-doms have done. So it's really taking a leaf out of their book.

I think you've always got to look at where, not just what you need to do now, but where you need to be several steps down the road if you're going to manage your journey effectively. And that's really been my guiding principle. What are the people at the top end of the top 1 % doing? And how can we bring that to the people who are at the peasant end of the top 1 %? Because otherwise, you'll just plateau.

kevin whelan (10:50.872)
But why is, you just heard Emmanuel talk about balance in life, why would it be important to be aspiring and comparing and looking what other people are doing for tax reasons, for example?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (11:06.41)
No, think it's not about, it's not really about tax. It's about, I mean, I had a good job, a good career. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But one of the reasons we left that is because you wanted more control. You wanted to be your own boss. And these days, particularly in the West, where governments are getting more more socialists, I mean, I started my business career where the climate was governments are small, they're out

of your way and there's minimal light touch regulation. We're now moving in the opposite direction of socialism, which is bigger government, more control, more interference, more telling you what you can do and can't do. And that's why I got out of the rat race in the first place. It's another rat race. You know, if you look at, buy to let investing and look at what they are putting in now in terms of what you can and can't do, and they're doing that in everything, you if you try to employ people.

kevin whelan (11:39.79)
Mm.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (12:06.2)
You know, the workers' rights bill is another dog's breakfast coming up. You know, so it's saying, well, where do you go? Otherwise, you're just trapped in one jurisdiction. How are people managing to get around this? And it's from that point of view that you look at the people who are above you, who are a bit more global in their outlook.

kevin whelan (12:32.142)
Okay, what do you want to add Emmanuel?

Immanuel Ezekiel (12:32.476)
So I think I have a slightly simpler way of explaining it. So it's not how much you make, it's how much you keep, how much you can reinvest and how much you can grow. And if you're giving away 40 to 60 % of what you earn, it's much harder to accumulate wealth over time. And, you know, one of the reasons why pensions in SAS is,

is a fantastic vehicle which we haven't touched upon today. It allows you to grow and expand without that reduction. But now 2027, the cliffhanger is here. Everything that you've planned for and it's a vehicle that you planned for for over 40 years. Everything that you've planned for all of a sudden overnight because a government.

or policy decides that they now want to get their lovely grubby hands on the money that you've invested over a very long period of time, that you now have to make maybe different plans for yourself and for your family. So what I've been able to really glean from family offices in the really wealthy over the last 10 years, that it's a mindset, it's not a location.

it gives you the ability to be able to maneuver and to move wherever you need to go, regardless of what the government does or what the policies are. It gives you freedom, true freedom. gives you financial freedom. It gives you time freedom and it gives you geographical freedom. So one is to have the freedom to do what you want with the financial freedom.

But if you have financial freedom, but you don't have the time, you've got no, you've got the money, but you can't spend it. And if you've got the time and you've got the money, but you cut it, but you're tied to one location, you're a truck millionaire. You're in a cage. So giving you the ability and especially as you get older to have, to unlock what you've created. And Ranjan and I are very passionate, not only about ourselves, but helping people unlock their trapped.

Immanuel Ezekiel (14:45.59)
savings so they can use it for themselves and for succession planning. If you speak to any family office, they'll tell you they plan this right from the outset. this is not a new concept. They think we're crazy by planning it when we're later on in life. They do it automatically. In fact, I was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about this specific subject and she said to me,

One of the financial institutions said, we can't find any of your property. She went, that's the point. The whole point is that you protect your wealth for your family and for future generations. That's what we're.

doing is planning and helping people and not just for ourselves, but let them do the same planning for succession planning. You spend your whole life taking gambles, sacrifices, time, energy, and risk. And then all of a sudden you lose it in many different ways because of government policy. And if you think, if you look at other countries where the tax regime is much lower, it's easier to accumulate wealth and protect yourself. And I think you'll see we're quite passionate about that.

.

kevin whelan (15:56.002)
sense that and of course both of you have come from a background of property and whether you want geographical freedom, time freedom, money freedom or any freedom that you could articulate, relationship freedom, freedom of purpose, freedom of control, all of those things, how do you deal with the issue that if your properties are based on land in this country how do you create the very freedom to

exercise the freedom of the income, the freedom of the legacy, the freedom of the inheritance tax planning when predominantly you have an asset based here in the UK. I'm talking generally not specifically about you, but we deal with many people who choose to the enjoyment path that Ranjan eloquently out give us a sort of a picture of saying how much you enjoy building a portfolio.

Then once you've got it, all of a sudden you've got to change the mindset and go, how do I protect that? How do I protect it from rising interest rates, which are happening right now? How do I protect this from inheritance tax? So how do you do that and give us a view about how that single asset tax challenge, or not challenge, from a tax point of view, inheritance tax mostly, but the trap of being stuck with a single asset isn't very diverse when it comes to building wealth.

Immanuel Ezekiel (17:22.546)
I'll answer it shortly and I'll let Ranjan do a much longer explanation. And I have a phrase that says, if you think the cost of good advice is expensive,

kevin whelan (17:22.882)
of

Immanuel Ezekiel (17:34.0)
Try the cost of poor advice, bad advice, your own advice. Most people do not invest in the right advice to protect the asset that they have. So if they want the ability to diversify and flexibility, they can't do so because they haven't planned accordingly. I'll let Ranjan expand that much more.

kevin whelan (17:53.305)
Okay.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (17:54.783)
I there are solutions available. It's just, obviously it depends on people's individual situation, but in a nutshell, it's about how you own the assets. So if you own the assets in your personal capacity, then you have far less room for maneuver. But if they are in a corporate structure,

then what you actually own are the shares in that corporate structure, which is a completely different ballgame. So although the physical assets may be in the UK, huge amount depends on how it's held. If people have portfolios of properties in their own name, they've got a lot of tidying up to do before they can really look at some kind of international structure, holding structure.

But the exact mechanism depends so much on people's individual search situations. But to cut a long story short, it's owning shares rather than individual properties.

kevin whelan (18:49.721)
So.

kevin whelan (18:54.403)
Okay. So given that, how has that directly affected how you guys have structured and some of the concepts, not necessarily, we're not giving advice on a podcast. It's just education about concepts. So we know everybody should take advice, but notwithstanding that, what are some of the reasons then, and then some of the steps that you may need to take if you're exploring moving to a different country, because we're hearing a lot more about that and even

very famous billionaire saying there's no room to be in this country, it's just so uncertain, so unstable. And this is a common piece of news these days. But when it comes to your own individual decision about what were the things that made you decide to move then to which country or how much time you spend in your country, tell people what you've been doing, Manjan. I know you're speaking to you today from a different country.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (19:50.783)
and

Yes, I have made the...

I to base myself out of the United Arab Emirates, more specifically Dubai. I spend typically six to seven months here, during what is very nice period. And I spend two or three months in Thailand, maybe a month or so in the UK, and travel back and forth a little bit of time. I'm still actively doing my business in the UK, businesses in the UK, and I'm still investing and developing stuff

the UK but I'm doing it as a UAE tax resident and that gives a lot of advantages and if you actually think about it if you just look at what this government encourages.

They don't seem to encourage people who are actually homegrown business people in the UK. There's nothing on the table for them. But what they do say, you you've seen it at conferences, are we want to encourage inward investment.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (20:57.874)
know, Keir Starmer was voted into power and this was one of the things that made me, it was one of the things in the back of my mind when I decided to leave the UK. Within a month of getting into power, he hosted that Larry guy, Larry Fink, Black Rock head at number 10 Downing Street and Starmer tweeted.

and this is available on his channel, you can still look it up. He tweeted words to the effect of, we will only, only be able to have growth in the UK with the help of foreign investors like BlackRock, in partnership with BlackRock. So the only way is with these foreign guys, not with encouraging UK small business, you know.

And that seems to be the direction of travel because if you base yourself and structure yourself as a non-resident and then actually invest back in the UK, you can actually do it on the same level playing field as the Black Rocks. Those guys are having a lot of fun. If you look at property, the amount of foreign held structures that are buying up UK residential and commercial properties are huge.

You know, so although obviously we're lot smaller than those guys, but it's the same sort of platform in the same way that if you set up an independent coffee shop next to Starbucks, you might produce better coffee, but your profit structure and your cost base is completely different to that Starbucks because they have that international structure.

and that's really what we're replicating. I'm not saying I'm gone for good, I don't want to have anything to do with the UK or anything like that, but I can do better business in the UK and in other places by not necessarily having the structure that's just pinned in that jurisdiction.

kevin whelan (22:56.609)
Okay, so were there any unique tax advantages within Dubai as opposed to choosing to place yourself somewhere else?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (23:04.578)
There are lots of countries you can go that have similar opportunities. I like Dubai because of the place, but there are other places that give you that. But one of the benefits of Dubai or the UAE is that there's zero income tax, there's zero capital gains tax, there's zero inheritance tax.

corporation tax for a UAE company. mean, my UAE company has to make the equivalent of £600,000 worth of revenue before you're subject to 9 % corporation tax on the amount of revenue above that. I mean, that is a huge break.

kevin whelan (23:49.454)
I can see the benefits of that, of course for a country to run itself there has to be some taxes somewhere. Even if they're super efficient, which I assume would be a sales tax of some kind.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (23:54.754)
Of course.

Immanuel Ezekiel (23:55.474)
Well.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (23:59.651)
There is 5 % VAT. Of course there are taxes here and the country runs itself very well. They simply don't spaff money up the wall. I don't want to be in the UK with a tonne of freeloaders to fund who have contributed nothing to the UK. There are no freeloaders here. You contribute, you're in. You don't contribute, you're out. You know, it's as simple as that.

Immanuel Ezekiel (24:24.018)
There is something else which is quite important. So the UAE has a wealth fund, its own wealth fund, which is something equivalent of 271 trillion compared to the UK debt, which is about 260 trillion in debt. what one is earning money.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (24:44.482)
you

Immanuel Ezekiel (24:50.544)
continuously and investing and they do charge but you get charged on what you spend. it's consumer purchase led and the taxes are still quite small. So you keep what you earn and then you get taxed on bits and you still end up with considerably more than you would have by normal taxation. So it's a different efficiency system and it's not just UAE. know Singapore, other countries also have very similar

government structure where they run as businesses. We're not quite run as a business. They have 20 year plans, 40 year plans. We're lucky to have a three week plan in the UK and implement it with nine to 10 prime ministers in the last 10 years. So we have no continuity.

in terms of vision or plan and when another government comes in they start changing the policy and blaming the other one and everyone blames everybody else rather than thinking about the country and the economy they think about how they're going to get voted next time around in those in the other countries it's a different environment that they think as a business.

kevin whelan (25:52.175)
Alright.

kevin whelan (25:56.144)
With those different countries, and there many of those, and we're not suggesting any one country is better than another, more of a, I think you said it earlier on, Emmanuel, a mindset thing. But to maybe switch gears into the positives, I mean, you've decided yourselves, you're wanting to help people think through some of the mindset issues, some of the importances of being free.

Immanuel Ezekiel (26:04.23)
Great.

kevin whelan (26:24.323)
financially, geographically, basically the flexibility to be able to operate where they want to for a different lifestyle. What are you suggesting the wealth behind borders and be one of us is all about? Why don't you give us a sense of that Emmanuel?

Immanuel Ezekiel (26:42.098)
So wealth beyond borders is really the ability to live wherever you want to, whether you want to live in the UK or anywhere else. You don't have to move, but having yourself set up with an international structure that gives you the flexibility so you can plan not only for yourself, but for your children, for the future generation, for inheritance and for succession planning is how all

what I call family offices and wealthy families plan. They plan with the end in sight and how they can hand over the baton from one generation to the next generation without losing or depleting any of the wealth that they've actually created. So we created Be One of Us. So in the name, it's Be One of Us. So Randian and I have been doing this for the last four years ourselves, testing the market ourselves to see what works.

with the financial advisors, with the tax advisors, with the cross-border specialists, so we can implement it ourselves. And we've set up, be one of us to show people what we do. We introduce them, we're an advisory service. We don't recommend any products or services. We introduce people that will set up the correct structures and frameworks to allow them to have the flexibility. So not everybody can diversify internationally straight away. So for instance, as Ranjan said, if they have a property portfolio,

the first step is incorporation. How do they incorporate? If they're ready incorporated, what is the next step for them? Do they have children? What are the ages? How many properties they have? What other wealth do they have? So everyone is an individual, but having a...

international cross-border specialist based in the UK and overseas that has your plan approved by HMRC before you implement it is the kind of umbrella and safety that we like to work under. So that's really the basic structure. Ranjan, would you like to add anything to that?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (28:44.674)
think you covered it well.

Immanuel Ezekiel (28:47.538)
Yeah.

kevin whelan (28:49.035)
And are you still planning this or have you got something that you'll be revealing at some point soon? Where are you on your journey to let people know about the benefit of your experience over the last four years or so?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (29:03.02)
Well, we've been implementing it, so we've been actually doing it. And we're now in the process of, well, we have been doing it for the last few months, sharing that with people. So we are going to be very shortly, we ran a business retreat for people from all over Europe. What surprised us about that retreat? We had about 65 business owners from all over Europe come along.

Only, I'd say about 18 to 20 percent were from the UK. But the problems that people are facing in the UK, you can cut and paste into France, Germany, Austria, Holland, and so many other countries in Europe. It's amazing how exactly, it's as though these countries all run by exactly the same government, doing exactly the same silly policies. So it's not just a UK phenomenon.

and every country's jurisdiction has its own challenges for managing that exit structure. But what I will say, and here's the thing, compared to many other countries in the UK, we have a lot more options than most for the Wealth Beyond Borders approach. Many countries have put the barriers up already.

You know, like a lot of what we talk about is very difficult to do if you're a Canadian citizen, for example, because they have very, very hard to wriggle out of exit taxes, which is also based on the share value of any companies that you have and all the rest of it. we are very lucky, you could say, that our government is in such denial about the...

the effect they're having on business people, that they don't really want to recognise how many people are considering these sort of options. So we still have a lot of opportunities available to us as UK people, which other countries they've already shut the gates on.

Immanuel Ezekiel (31:09.07)
I think it's important to say that the UK is still a fantastic place to generate wealth with all the things that we have available to us in terms of leverage, gearing, financing. still, but once you've accumulated it, it's how you protect it and how you hand on that baton to future generations. So

Ranjan Bhattacharya (31:16.374)
Yes.

Immanuel Ezekiel (31:32.089)
it's really important that we get it across that, you know, we made our money in the UK through property and it's still a great place to be, to accumulate. But once you've got to that stage, how do you protect it? And that's what Wealth Beyond Borders is all about. And that's what B1 of us is there to help people to ring fence and protect what they've created. So it's not evaporated. It's not lost through bad planning or lack of planning.

kevin whelan (32:02.743)
It's an interesting one. just trying to draw the parallel. Emmanuel, mentioned SAS a few minutes ago and it was interesting because I went to an accountancy conference for my sins. try and keep in tune with the tax advisers in the UK and around a room I was asking them if they could confirm to me the details of the plan changes for April 2027.

Immanuel Ezekiel (32:10.396)
I do.

kevin whelan (32:33.239)
And what two or three things could they advise their client to do something about it? Nobody knew a thing. You know, when I talk to clients of wealth builders all the time and they say, well, my accountants should know. said, they bloody well should know, but they don't know. Because the accountants are in the main, not all, there's some great accountants out there, looking backwards. They're responding to the need to do a piece of compliance work, like a tax return or a corporation tax return.

But who does the inheritance tax return? And does the accountant ever do it? The answer is no, because always the children who do it. And the argument that I'm making to accountancies, the inheritance tax changes coming, which are massive, are a real opportunity if you understand the proactive nature of what taxes should be about future planning, not rear view planning. Because the triple whammy on tax, which is the 40 % tax.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (33:25.826)
Hmm hmm hmm hmm.

kevin whelan (33:31.343)
on the pension from April 2027, then the loss of the residential allowance if it adds too much to your estate, goodness me, you've got to work that out. And then if you actually cling on and live past 75, your kids have got to pay income tax on the balance. And the combined effect of all of those is almost 85p in the pound and gone in tax. if you've got a million pound pension, you know.

Immanuel Ezekiel (33:54.79)
Well.

kevin whelan (33:59.244)
only 150 grand could end up in your kids' hands. So I'm really passionate about trying to get accountants to spread this, as well as me spreading it. So I see the parallel that, first of all, there's a mind shift. And of course, with a cliffhanger, as you mentioned, that change is coming. There's an opportunity to teach. Where's the mindset issue then? Because I'm just trying to make sure people feel like it's within their reach. Because if they take a couple of things that have been said today, they're like, ooh.

Immanuel Ezekiel (34:02.844)
So.

Immanuel Ezekiel (34:17.682)
So.

kevin whelan (34:29.177)
That's not for me. Like the top 1 % of the 1%, if you have a yacht or you have not, that kind of thing. could be, hmm, that's too big for me. Or alternatively, only when you've accumulated, but nobody knows how much they've accumulated, to feel like this should be something they should be thinking about. And they could start that thinking now, not necessarily, in 20 years time when they've accumulated so much more.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (34:37.527)
Bye.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (34:48.258)
Mm-hmm.

Immanuel Ezekiel (34:55.57)
So I'm going to set something up for Ranjan because, I'll explain why. So part of all the things that we've been doing over the last four years is understanding what is coming up in all different areas and pensions is one of those. And when you do have a pension that you've accumulated,

kevin whelan (34:58.797)
Okay.

Immanuel Ezekiel (35:17.35)
How do you protect it for yourself and future generations? So some people might want to know and consider how they can get access to all of their pension and not have to pay any inheritance tax whatsoever and live off that money by being a little bit flexible. with that.

in mind. I'll hand over to Ranjan who will explain the some of the fantastic opportunities you have if you're able to not be a tree and not be rooted to the ground or to one country or one destination to show you just how much better your life could be for yourself and what you can leave to future generations. Ranjan over to you.

kevin whelan (35:58.99)
Nicely set up manual by the way.

Immanuel Ezekiel (36:02.066)
you

Ranjan Bhattacharya (36:02.902)
I think, listen, think the, one of the things is, I mean, as Emmanuel said, the UK, for UK people is phenomenally good for building wealth through property still, because of leverage and because of the access to credit. And it's a fantastic place to build that foundation and get started.

But I think too many people in property will, I don't know, go on an HMO course and learn about HMOs. But then...

You might do five, we've all done HMOs, but there are very few people with a thousand HMOs or a hundred HMOs. It's something you do to build a bit of cash flow, but what next? But while you're doing that HMO course, you're surrounded by HMO people, you're doing HMO, or might be doing service to accommodation, or whatever strategy it is that you're doing. But what's next? The problem which I have suffered, and Emmanuel has suffered over the decades, is we didn't know what the end game was.

And we didn't start with the end in sight. And we didn't do everything today with that sort of migration path and that sort of direction of travel a little bit mapped out. So even if you understood, I mean, they say when they went to the moon first time, if you actually believe they went there, they had the rough idea of where they were going, but the computers kind of reprogrammed the exact trajectory a little step at a time.

kevin whelan (37:26.499)
You

Immanuel Ezekiel (37:28.978)
Thanks.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (37:38.017)
So they had a rough idea of the general direction of travel, but the detailed reprogramming of the next part of the path of the rocket was done while it was the next step. But it was always done with the end in sight.

and with the end a little bit mapped out, but not in detail so that it can be changed and flexed as you go. And that's really what this is about. So that you aren't building your foundation of wealth in the UK with a ceiling and you don't know where next. So we have laid out what we kind of have done with Be One of Us. Be One of Us is about if you like what we do and you want to be one of us and do the kind of things that we do and want to share in that journey.

we're putting out our approach. So we say to people, look, you your foundation, your foundation is very, very important. And that's about building wealth through property, because that's what Emmanuel and I know how to do. And there several great strategies that work right now. there are, and property only works as a wealth generation tool if you use the fuel of using other people's money in every way possible, not just banks and the like.

leverage is what gets you to that destination faster. But when you have built your foundation, you quickly discover that...

It is difficult to progress. mean, we have some massive cliff edges in our tax system. People always talk about the low end of the income tax threshold, but the hundred grand cliff edge has remained the same for the last six years and is having a massive effect. So when you get to those sort of limits, you have to think about other things. So, you know, once you've built your foundation, you've fueled it with other people's money, you've got to think about the next frontier. And the frontier is

kevin whelan (39:14.359)
Yeah.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (39:33.613)
really about saying, okay, is the UK the only real estate market I can invest in? Are there other real estate market opportunities out there? Are there other asset classes that we can invest in? Are there other income streams that we can have? Can we diversify our business interests in terms of which jurisdictions those are held in? So we're seeking new frontiers. And then you have to start thinking about the fortress. How to protect it.

You know, for a lot of us, for Emanuel and I, we are self-made people. You know, I went to an event recently, which was a family office event, and the guy who was speaking was the fifth generation in their family office structure. So they've already set it up. They already know how to set up the fortress and cascade it down the generations. People like Emanuel and I have had to learn those sort of things for the first time.

because we didn't have that set up by whoever it was in our distant past. So it's about building wealth with a little bit of a road map. And I guess because we've both got a few grey hairs, we know a little bit about what the end game is. We are encouraging people at whatever stage they're on, whether they want to build their foundational wealth in the UK, whether they need some help with adding fuel to it through raising other people's money, whether they want to

Immanuel Ezekiel (40:51.143)
Thank

Ranjan Bhattacharya (40:56.046)
and explore new frontiers and whether they want to start setting up their fortress, the four F's as we call it. But you've got to, even if you're just doing HMOs in the UK, you've got to have an eye on the rest of the route map and make sure that what you're doing now is compatible and gives you least friction when you're ready to migrate to the next stage. Yeah.

kevin whelan (41:21.581)
Is that another F?

Immanuel Ezekiel (41:21.65)
You still didn't give the gold about the pensions and what people can do. You want to give a little bit of a sizzle about the pension because you talked eloquently about the 4Fs, only the 4Fs, but not as eloquently about what people can do with their pensions and how they can unlock it.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (41:32.273)
that sort of thing. I was wondering what you were getting at, actually.

kevin whelan (41:36.001)
I thought he'd set you up, Ranjan. I don't know where this is going, but I'm curious.

kevin whelan (41:48.207)
Just before you do that, because this is obviously we're speaking and people will pick it up. Do you want to summarize the four reps again, please?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (41:56.547)
We're talking about, and people may be at any one of these stages, we're talking about the foundation, which is the building wealth through property strategies in the UK, basically to get to a certain level. And you can do that with what we call fuel, and the fuel is other people's money. Yes, of course. mean, be your own bank. I've certainly done that myself.

kevin whelan (42:11.012)
Got that?

kevin whelan (42:16.715)
Or sass, by the way. Don't forget the sass.

Immanuel Ezekiel (42:19.078)
Yes.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (42:24.97)
And then we're talking about the frontier, which is the looking at other jurisdictions for business, for assets, for property, for income streams, for diversification. And then we're looking at fortress.

kevin whelan (42:36.333)
Okay. Okay.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (42:39.862)
the setting up that legacy so that if you just sit in the UK, I mean, I've seen so many people building their little HMO portfolios and they've got a little baby on their way and they're thinking, I'm doing this for my kiddo. And they haven't got a clue that really they can give NAFAL to their kiddo.

If you hold a property in your own name and you haven't got any international diversification because it is a residential UK property, at the end of the day, the government's going to take a massive slice. And a lot of people just don't know that.

kevin whelan (43:18.863)
Yeah, and I think one of things I've noticed actually just before Manuel sets it up for you again, talk about pension, is when I'm meeting clients and talk to them about what they built and specifically talk about how the pension is going to add to their inheritance tax, so need to know what they built, and I talk to them about, well, what do your current kids think about that? And they haven't talked anything with the kids. The kids are not interested in the property.

The kids are just interested in what's it all going to be worth for me at the end of the day. So you're right, there is no end in mind. There is no planned outcome. It's accumulate for accumulation's sake. And that's fun and enjoyable, as you mentioned. But there is a lack of an ultimate end game. But given the end game on pensions is changing, more people will spend their money, I think. I think we're seeing an increasing number of people saying, well, sorry, I'll just take

as much as my pension out. But what was the pension point you wanted Ranjan to make? Because he hasn't made it.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (44:21.73)
I think pensions are... I started my pension when I was very... My set-up... Sorry, workplace pension is different, but SAS and SIPs... SIPs I started very, very late 20s. SASs I started early 30s. But when you embark in something for...

something that's going to benefit you 30 years in the future. You do so under a set of rules and they have consistently tinkered and tampered with the rules.

When I first got involved in SIPS, you could contribute £210,000 per director per year into your pension from profit before tax. And they have consistently moved the goal posts around, which makes it very, difficult to plan. one thing, you know, they've increased the retirement age to, you can't draw now from until 57. They've taken the whole... Yes.

kevin whelan (45:21.839)
That's from 2028, but it's coming soon.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (45:25.068)
coming very very soon. They're taking the whole pot out of the inheritance tax protection. So it's now put back into play. And there's something else I'm scared of. A couple of months ago, the government put through some legislation which allows them to basically insist that private pensions are invested in stuff they want to invest in. Yeah. Now what's that all about? What they going to insist on? Well,

kevin whelan (45:49.487)
Yes, all that.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (45:55.267)
We all know that government can't shift their debt for love or money. No one wants to buy government yields. Why would you? Are you going to trust Andy Burnham and his socialist crew to pay it back? Probably not. So bond yields are going through the roof. So what are they going to do? They're going to say, I mean, this isn't a sort of Margaret Thatcher type government where...

she wanted to sell British Telecom and you have the choice to buy into British Telecom and British Airways and whether you want those shares and they were subsequently oversubscribed or not. This is a socialist by force government. So they've got this legislation because they will say that a percentage of your pension you have to buy UK government yields, government debt. Because that's the only way they can get a buyer for the stuff.

Ursula von der Leyen said a couple of months ago that there's, she described it as lazy money in European savings and pensions. What the hell has it got to do with her? okay, okay, okay. Here's the punchline. Okay, so you've got all these threats to pensions, but if you...

Immanuel Ezekiel (47:00.594)
You're still not altering, Ranjan. You're still not giving it. You're still not giving it. You're being like a politician right now.

kevin whelan (47:03.343)
He's on, he's on, he's he's on.

kevin whelan (47:13.025)
I'm up for your run, Jen.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (47:14.61)
If you go to a country, like I've come to a country where there's no income tax and nothing like that. So I am more than 57 now. So that means I can draw my pension in terms of a salary or I can draw it in terms of a capital pot as much as I like and I will be taxed.

on the basis of the country I'm now residing in. So under current UK law, yes, I've put the money into the pension over many years, they've moved the goalposts, I've benefited from the tax relief going in, but I can sit here in my new country of residence and pull out the pension or pull out the capital amounts if I want to, and I will be taxed on the basis of the country where I reside, which is zero.

Under the UAE Double Taxation Treaty 2016, it's zero. And the UK has more than 150 double taxation treaties with various countries around the world. You can do it if you pitch up in Cyprus and half a dozen other countries as well. So if you're scared of what they might do to your pension, because they want it, they've got their BDIs on it, then moving offshore can be a fantastic option to unlock it.

kevin whelan (48:16.163)
Peace.

Immanuel Ezekiel (48:40.37)
And that's why it's called Wealth Beyond Borders. gives you the flexibility.

kevin whelan (48:43.545)
Yeah, well I hear that. There's a lot of these things to, I'm sure, unpack in the future and I'd love to be part of the discussion because pensions has been the mainstay of my career for 30 years and I see the changes myself and it's difficult and I realize it's difficult not to be fuming about this. It is difficult, but in order, suppose, to stay the right side of sanity and good guidance.

I try and hold my council as much as I can and I can hear out Janice and so that's...

Listen, as gentlemen, it's been fun. So obviously at some point, well, beyond borders, be one of us is going to be not just a retreat, but there'll be information. How, if people want to know more, they're opening their mindset. They're thinking about, wow, I could move my pension offshore. What do they need to do and how would they connect and contact with you?

Immanuel Ezekiel (49:46.61)
So they can contact us in a number of ways. So we have a website which is www.BENumberOneOfUs.com or they can contact Rang Jan and myself directly. It will be a community so it's not just going to be the retreat. We have a community where we will help.

kevin whelan (49:58.212)
Yeah.

Immanuel Ezekiel (50:09.018)
really help people all the way from start to finish, whatever they're trying to achieve for themselves and for their family. And it's not a cookie cutter, everybody is individual. Through the advisory service, we'll put them in touch with the people that help them create the structure for them and their family.

kevin whelan (50:25.487)
Alright, well we'll put a link to that in the show notes anyway. Do you want to add something, dear?

Ranjan Bhattacharya (50:30.688)
Yeah, I just saying, also follow both Emmanuel and I on Instagram, TikTok, follow me on YouTube, search our names out there. We'll be putting out a lot of content very, shortly on this whole subject because we have a lot to say.

Immanuel Ezekiel (50:46.972)
Yeah.

kevin whelan (50:47.639)
And you did so well.

Ranjan Bhattacharya (50:47.766)
from our different unique perspectives, Emmanuel and I putting out a lot, so just follow us back.

kevin whelan (50:50.863)
So I see the difference in your style and that's absolutely great. It's been a pleasure to have you share your thoughts, insights and both of us have ranted and raved a little today and I get that. And me on Sass is a new on the country. But it's good to wear these things, isn't it really? Because deep down we are trying to help people. And sometimes that passion can come out in more ways than one.

Immanuel Ezekiel (51:14.416)
Correct. We are.

kevin whelan (51:19.725)
I've appreciated that, means we're all human. Thanks for your time, gentlemen. And until next time, everyone, see ya.

Immanuel Ezekiel (51:27.932)
Thank you for having us.