Ingenious is delighted to announce that the film Battle of the Sexes is due to hit U.S theatres on 22 September 2017, with an international release following thereafter. The comedy-drama, backed by the Ingenious Pathé Plus EIS Fund, chronicles the legendary tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

Starring Oscar winner Emma Stone (La La Land) and Steve Carell (The 40 Year Old Virgin), the biopic tells the story of the two tennis Grand Slammers during the infamous 1973 challenge match in which King, a well-known woman’s rights activist, defeated a publically sexist Riggs. The match generated significant media attention and became the most watched televised sports event of all time.

Battle of the Sexes is directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, both of whom directed the highly acclaimed film Little Miss Sunshine.

Watch the trailer here.

Ingenious, the leading independent investor in the creative industries and backer of hit movies including Avatar and Life of Pi, is to appeal against the judgement of the First-tier Tax Tribunal in its long-running dispute with HMRC over the tax status of its historic film production partnerships which date back as far as 2002.

This follows a recent supplementary decision handed down by Judge Charles Hellier in which he clarified a technical point from his original August 2016 judgement. In this clarification, the judge ruled “with misgivings and reluctance” that the film production costs were capital costs and therefore not tax deductible.

This decision was deliberately mischaracterised in press reports as a failed bid by Ingenious to overturn the August 2016 Tribunal decision. In fact, this latest development was triggered after the Tribunal, having found in favour of the Ingenious partnerships on the Tribunal’s basis of assessment, instructed the parties to agree a common approach in applying the judgement.

Ingenious believes this further decision compounds the errors made by the First-tier Tax Tribunal which simply reinforces the need to take this matter to a higher court. The appeal to the Upper Tribunal is likely to be heard during 2018 and Ingenious are confident of victory.

The Tribunal’s clarification of a technical matter has been presented in the media in a wholly-biased manner which misrepresents the facts and misleads the reader.

We strongly disagree with the Tribunal’s clarification and find it wholly unsatisfactory that the Tribunal reached this decision with “misgivings and reluctance”. We will be appealing the entire decision of the Tribunal.

This follows a recent successful appeal brought by Ingenious against HMRC which led to the judges of the Supreme Court unanimously ruling in favour of Ingenious that HMRC had acted unlawfully in a briefing to the press.

Neil Forster

CEO

Halifax, this month reported the first quarterly decline in UK house prices (0.2%) since November 2012, annual house price growth however, remained at 3.8%. It would seem that warnings prior to last year’s EU Referendum that Brexit could lead to a 10% fall in house prices have so far, at least, proved unfounded.

Fast forward almost a year from the referendum and Theresa May has triggered Article 50 and called a general election that she looks set to win with an increased Conservative Party majority. Despite all the related economic uncertainty property prices and their relationship to income ratios remain at an all-time high. Despite signs the market may be cooling especially in Central London, there are good reasons to remain positive about prospects for long term price growth and market stability:-

The reality is that Brexit has not happened yet, formal negotiations are yet to begin and the current period of uncertainty looks set to continue, at least until the UK’s relationship with Europe is finally decided although this shows no sign of being resolved anytime soon.

Ingenious Real Estate remains very much open for business; we continue to expand both our team and our product range. Despite the ongoing uncertainty, we are winning mandates, have a growing pipeline from both new and existing clients, drawing on our experience, contacts and flexibility.

If you have any opportunities you would like to discuss with us or would like to know more about any aspect of what we do, feel free to get in touch. We can normally provide an indicative response within 48 hours.

Ingenious Real Estate is thrilled to announce the completion of a £4m bridging facility to assist an existing customer finalise planning for a scheme of 32 flats in central Gerrards Cross.

Gerrards Cross has remained one of England’s most sought after villages outside of London thanks to its excellent selection of local schools and direct commuter links.

Tom Brown, Head of Real Estate Finance comments “A second deal to one of our best developers in a short period demonstrates our commitment to building genuine and lasting relationships with our partners. As we can also provide the development finance, this saves our customer’s time and duplicating costs whilst giving the Developer reassurance funding when they need it”.

We continue to seek new opportunities to deploy capital and give an indicative response within 48 hours – please give us a call on 020 7319 4253.

Ingenious Infrastructure, the infrastructure investment division of Ingenious, the alternative investment manager, has added a 7.6MW wind farm in Scotland to its Ingenious Estate Planning (IEP) Service portfolio. St John’s Hill wind farm in Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, was bought from Renewable Energy Ventures Ltd., a Scottish wind asset developer.

Ingenious’ advisers on the deal were Dentons on the legal side and K2 on the technical side. The seller was supported by Pinsent Mason and Greencat respectively. Accountancy firm Greenbank advised the seller on financial matters. The asset will be managed by Stirling-based energy project management firm, Becon Consultancy. The total value of the acquisition is approximately £18 million.

This is the first wind asset to be added to the IEP portfolio. Following the successful acquisition of a portfolio of 15MW of solar farms in 2016 from Spanish EPC contractor, Solarig, the purchase of St John’s Hill wind farm follows the team’s strategy to grow and diversify its £100m portfolio across a broad range of renewable energy assets, in order to mitigate revenues fluctuations caused by the sea-sonality of solar assets. Another 13MW of wind assets are expected to be acquired by the end of June 2017, taking the total to 23MW. The team is also seeking further deals in the secondary wind and solar markets.

Commenting on the acquisition, Roberto Castiglioni, Investment Director, Ingenious Infrastructure said “As Ingenious continues to expand its presence in the global renewable energy sector; St John’s Hill is certainly a strategic addition to the IEP portfolio. Diversification is at the core of our strategy, in order to mitigate risks and enhance returns, and the team’s expertise and previous experience in managing wind assets will prove beneficial in maximising the benefits of the asset for our investors”.

Sebastian Speight, managing director at UK energy and infrastructure investor Ingenious Infrastructure, spoke to CEP this week about the company’s plans to invest in new clean energy infrastructure, its market expansion strategy, energy trends in 2017 and more. 

Read the full article here.

Earlier this month the Government published a wide ranging white paper (Fixing our broken housing market, February 2017) in an attempt to address the ‘broken’ housing market and its growing lack of supply. The paper praises existing schemes to help people get on the housing ladder, however admits that construction of new homes is still far behind the necessary target, recently increased to 275,000.

The principal focus of the paper is to bring sites to development more quickly. The Government wants to encourage Local Planning Authorities (LPAs) to make more use of compulsory purchase powers on stalled developments, and to consider the likelihood of a development completing when assessing planning applications. LPAs may also be able to reduce the time limit to implement a planning permission from three years to two, and, if a major developer is involved, assess their track record of completing schemes promptly.

Other proposals include encouraging LPAs to increase housing density where viable, reducing the affordable housing requirement on new developments from 20% to 10%, and automatically approving sustainable schemes when LPAs are not meeting their new homes targets.

These are largely welcome measures, but the white paper has been widely denounced for not going far enough. For instance, critics have argued that local governments should be better incentivised by increasing how much they benefit from increased council tax revenue.

However the lack of development land persists. One solution to this is to build on the green belt, but the white paper states that it must be used as a last resort. This protected land covers 12.7% of England; more than the UK’s parks, allotments, golf courses, gardens and concrete combined. By one estimate there is enough green belt in Greater London to build 1.6m houses at average density; enough to cover London’s requirements for the next 30 years. Even releasing small parts of this, much of which is not the green rolling hills depicted by the NIMBYs, could make a significant difference.

Pressure for new homes will continue, and is not purely down to a lack of building. The UK population has grown by 11% in the past 20 years- twice the EU average- and people are marrying later and divorcing more readily meaning that one in ten of us now live alone. Many argue that a more favourable option would be brownfield sites, but while preferable to green belt, brownfield would provide less than half of the requirement up to 2030 for London alone. The gap between what is being built and what needs to be is widening, and experts agree that while not the entire solution, more development land must be released. Perhaps it’s time to loosen the belt?

Recent media reports relating to high-profile investors in Ingenious film partnerships have misrepresented the tax status of their investments and Ingenious’ film business.

These are not ‘tax avoidance schemes’. This is not just Ingenious’s view, it is also the judgment of the UK court.

Ingenious is the largest private investor in the UK creative industries. Ingenious’ investors have helped independent films such as Selma and Mr Turner come to screen and backed profitable blockbusters like Life of Pi and Avatar.

Ingenious is proud of its track record in supporting the UK film industry and looks forward to the release of its next feature, Viceroy’s House, on March 3rd.

Notes to editors:

HMRC has tried to claim that certain partnerships that utilised government tax breaks designed to support the UK film industry were set up for the purpose of avoiding tax.

However, a Tax Tribunal brought by Ingenious against HMRC to challenge this notion vindicated Ingenious’s position and ruled that they were bona fide businesses run for a commercial profit and that Ingenious investors were putting their money into legitimate film investment vehicles.

This stands in contrast to other film related tax cases that have been before the courts in recent years.

The exact amount of tax relief that Ingenious investors are able to claim is still in dispute and Ingenious will continue to fight for its investors’ interests.

Founded in 1998, Ingenious has produced and co-financed hundreds of feature films and more than 550 hours of television programming with partners including 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Disney, Lionsgate, Film4, Pathé, the BBC, ITV and Endemol Shine.

Ingenious is a serial investor in the global creative economy, having raised and deployed more than £8 billion across the sector.

Ingenious Real Estate is delighted to announce £12m of completed deals to finish 2016 on a high; a £6m transaction for an 18 unit mixed use development in Walthamstow and a £6m Bridging Loan for a developable site in Guildford.

We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver fast and high quality funding to experienced counterparties. To find out more about our development and bridging finance Click here

We are delighted to announce that the Ingenious backed production Topsy and Tim has been awarded the Children’s BAFTA for Pre-School Live Action. The popular CBeebies programme follows the everyday adventures of two fun-loving twins, based on the classic children’s books by Jean and Gareth Adamson.

Sixteen South, for whom Ingenious investee companies backed both series of Lily’s Driftwood Bay, also won a BAFTA for Independent Production Company. Thanking Ingenious as he collected the BAFTA, Sixteen South creative director Colin Williams said: “When I decided to try this whole TV business, there were three things that I said were really important: passion, heart and quality and over the last eight years, I’m thrilled to have been joined by an amazing group of people who also live and breathe these three things.”1

Having been involved in the production of a further five Children’s BAFTA nominees including Teletubbies, Sarah and Duck and Clangers, the ceremony which took place on 20 November was a resounding success for Ingenious.

[1] http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/cbeebies-heads-childrens-baftas/5111512.article?referrer=RSS