Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa August 2018 | Page 60

WEALTH
Offshore Investing
in Retirement
Offshore Living
Annuity frees up captured
retirement pots
MIKE ABBOTT
Director of Wealth,
Sable International
58
M
any South Africans living
overseas have their retire-
ment annuities tied up in
SA pension funds, with little or no off-
shore investment and ultimately with
their pension paid out locally in Rand.
In response to this predicament, Sa-
ble International, together with their
preferred investment partners, has
launched an Offshore Living Annuity,
which is essentially a South African
living annuity product completely in-
vested in offshore funds.
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine
Currently in South Africa, once a
retirement annuity or pension fund
is transferred into a living annuity, it
can’t leave the country as a lump sum
– there is no mechanism to transfer a
living annuity abroad other than when
it has reduced to a prescribed amount
(usually R50,000). Clients who have
already left South Africa and who are
living in a different currency zone and
economic environment are not keen to
have a previously saved pension pot re-
maining in South Africa.