# Setting up an SMSF - Investment strategies and other administrative stuff



## beardoc (11 May 2008)

I'm new here, but I've been reading this forum with interest - it has been a fascinating read going through the various threads and I've learnt a lot.  I was wondering if I could get people's thoughts on my situation.

I'm 33.  At the moment, I have a bit over $100,000 in Super with First State Super, and another $50,000 in managed funds and $90,000 in cash.  I am not intending to use the cash and plan to put it into a superfund.  It is currently sitting in an online savings account at 8.25% and I figure that it's better earning interest that is subject to only 15% tax rather than 40% tax (my marginal tax rate), whilst I decide what to do with it.  I'm adding not only my compulsory 9% employer super but also my own salary sacrificed superannuation deductions to bring my concessional contributions to just under $50,000 per year, and then adding about $10-20,000 in undeducted contributions on top of that.

I don't have any major goals other than saving for retirement - no interim goals.

As I don't really have time to worry about researching and trading shares and other investment methods myself, I usually use managed funds and am comfortable with that, and I expect that I will look at investing in wholesale managed funds via an SMSF.  I realise this will involve some fees, but it strikes me that this way is a lot cheaper than the Superannuation platforms (which seem to charge quite handsomely).

On the SMSF, it's just me (no other trustees) so I'd have to register a corporation to be a trustee.  No big deal on that, I believe.  I believe that I can do this via ClearDocs and ASIC directly, or Patricia Holdings for the documents as well.

I intend to go and get financial advice very shortly in terms of deciding on my investment portfolio strategy, but am considering the following:

* full fee financial adviser that refunds upfront and trailing commissions to invest in managed funds (some wholesale, some retail) via a mastertrust or wrap account.
* setting up an SMSF and investing in managed funds (predominantly wholesale) under the guidance of a financial adviser
* setting up an Individually managed Account that is managed by a company and wrapped up in the SMSF, rather than investing in managed funds, bypassing the financial adviser and paying for the IMA service.

I was thinking of using an SMSF like ESuperfund, just to wrap it all up, as there doesn't seem to be any restrictions on who you use to invest in managed funds (although this might be a sticking point in using an IMA, as ESuperfund seems to require you use their choice of broker - I'd have to work out whether the additional costs because I couldn't use ESuperfund would be worth going down this path).

As someone that really doesn't have a lot of time to research, but happy to attend to the other annual administrative elements of an SMSF, are any of the above going to be better for me in the long term?

Specifically:

* Is ESuperfund going to allow me to drop the money in a high interest savings account (e.g. Raboplus, Bankwest Business Telenet Saver, etc.) or will they force me to keep cash in their Macquarie CMT?
* What are the ongoing costs and paperwork requirements for maintaining a trustee with ASIC?
* Would any of the three investment strategies be better than the others in your opinion?

Thanks for your help - I look forward to being more active around here!


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## ziggy2214 (5 March 2009)

beardoc
what did you end up doing on the issue?
cheers
Zig


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