Document Templates

SMSF Investment Strategy

One of the key rules in the Superannuation laws and regulations is that the trustees of a SMSF must formulate, regularly review, and give effect to an investment strategy. The investment strategy must set out the investment objectives of the fund, and detail the investment methods the fund will adopt to achieve these objectives.

Trustees must ensure that all investment decisions are made in accordance with the investment strategy. They must also ensure that they have taken into account all the circumstances of the fund in formulating this investment strategy. Specifically, the SIS Reg 4.09 states that:

 

The trustee of the entity must formulate, review regularly and give effect to an investment strategy that has regard to the whole of the circumstances of the entity including, but not limited to, the following:

 

(a) the risk involved in making, holding and realising, and the likely return from, the entity's investments, having regard to its objectives and expected cash flow requirements;

(b) the composition of the entity's investments as a whole, including the extent to which they are diverse or involve exposure of the entity to risks from inadequate diversification;

(c) the liquidity of the entity's investments, having regard to its expected cash flow requirements;

(d) the ability of the entity to discharge its existing and prospective liabilities;

(e) for a self managed superannuation fund--whether the trustees of the fund should hold a contract of insurance that provides insurance cover for one or more members of the fund.

 

 

A comprehensive SMSF investment strategy template

The SMSF Review has a comprehensive, detailed SMSF investment strategy template that incorporates the changes that were made from July 2012 with regard to what is required to be included in this document. It covers a large range of asset classes, including investments such as derivatives, commodities, currencies etc as well as the traditional stuff like shares, property, and fixed interest.

 

Note however, that this is only a sample document and that it is your responsibility as trustee(s) to formulate and implement your own investment strategy. We are not advising you to specifically use the parameters in this document.

 

One more important point – when you are coming up with new investment strategies for your SMSF and your written investment strategy, don’t forget to check that your trust deed allows it, and of course that it is allowed under the SIS laws. The trust deed overrides what is in your investment strategy, and the SIS laws override your trust deed..

 

Our sample SMSF investment strategy template is a downloadable Word document so you can edit it to suit your fund details. There is a version for those in the Accumulation phase, and one for those in the Pension phase. It has a small download cost of $22, which gets you both versions.

 

Note that while our payment processor is Paypal, you do not have to have a Paypal account. You can just pay with a regular credit card if you wish.

 

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you have paid, check your email where you will receive the links to the downloads. You will have 48 hours to download them.

Once you have paid via Paypal, you will also be taken to a download screen - depending on your browser, that screen might say that your order cannot be found - DONT STRESS - just check your email. The download links are in your email. Click Here to contact us if you dont get them.

 

 

SMSF Investment Strategy Templates : $22

Ongoing minor updates are FREE.

 

Also please note that these documents (or substantial amounts of them) may NOT be sold or reproduced either commercially or non-commercially in any way without the express written permission of The SMSF Review.

 

Derivatives Risk Statement

 

If you are writing covered calls (or doing buy-writes) on shares, or trading futures where an asset of the fund is held as collateral for a trade, you will also need a Derivatives Risk Statement.

 

CLICK HERE for more info on the Derivatives Risk Statement and how to get our template.