The Lemon Fool

I have my own 100%-owned limited company, that has a portfolio in a company trading account with EQi.

EQi is of course being sold to Interactive Investor, and so I've been informed my portfolio will transfer over to II.

Now as it happens, I already have an Interactive Investor account for my personal portfolios (ISA, SIPP, and a dormant Trading Account that I don't use).

As I don't fancy paying Interactive Investor's £30 pcm for a company account (I don't trade very often), I was hoping to be able to take the company's portfolio - once it's been transferred to its new II home - and move it over to my personal account's unused Trading account to hold the portfolio 'in trust' for the company, making sure all the necessary in-trust documentation etc. exists and is lodged with my accountant. My idea (perhaps naive!) would be that it would still ensure a strict separation because the trading account component of my personal account will only be used for that 'in-trust-for-the-company' purpose.

Interactive Investor is giving a downbeat answer about that (are there money laundering regs that prevent it?..)

So unless anyone has a inventive but still 100% legal suggestion in this scenario, what are my options for a company account on an investor platform somewhere that won't charge eye-watering fees just because it's a (one-man) ltd. company?

Thoughts please

A.

My thoughts are that you should keep any company accounts the other side of a glass wall from your own.

In the past you did this by holding them with different brokers. I would suggest trying to keep doing so,
EQI and II are very clear that you can move elsewhere.

Interactive investor charge £30pcm for trust accounts (plus the standard £9.99 fee), so I don't think your cunning plan would be of benefit even if they agreed to it.

Fair cop..

Hence is anyone aware of platforms allowing company accounts but with lower fees that I could consider?

A.

HL is cheaper but they have suspended due to the pandemic, I understand. Saxo, IG are two others.