Sustainability a priority for this AIM IHT portfolio company

Brickability Group (AIM: BRCK), the AIM quoted construction materials distributor and one of our AIM IHT portfolio companies, recently announced fabulous results for the year ended 31 March 2022.

Brickability is a leading construction materials distributor, serving customers across the UK and Europe for over 36 years through its national and local networks. The Group supplies over 550m bricks annually and has over 55 locations across the country with over 600 employees.

At the end of 2021 Brickability established a Group ESG Committee comprised of Board members and key members of Group management. One of the first priorities of the ESG Committee was to develop Brickability Group’s 2030 sustainability strategy which launched in July 2022. Full details of this are included in an ESG Report within the Annual Report. You can find out more about their ESG initiatives here.

The strategy sets out plans to minimise the Group’s negative impact, and increase positive impact, on people, planet and partners, fully integrating sustainability into their businesses and exploring an ambition to be carbon net zero in their sales businesses by 2030. The initial focus has been on measurement, insight and developing the ESG team and oversight.

One of the first steps in the move to net zero is the introduction a new Group wide Electric Vehicle (EV) policy which will see the transition of all company cars to Electric Vehicles and the installation of EV chargers at Group sites. We just hope the electric supply will also be from renewable sources!

February 2022 saw the launch of the Brickability Foundation Trust to support good causes and also inspire and enable employees to make a difference personally. Under the Foundation’s charter, the Group will donate 0.5% of its adjusted EBITDA in each financial year to the Foundation. £200,000 has been donated during the 2021/22 financial year, with £55,000 donated from the Foundation. The major charity chosen for 2022 is Maggie’s cancer charity.

We commend their sustainability and social initiatives and look forward to further updates on this.

Brickability is yet another constituent of our AIM portfolios for Inheritance Tax planning purposes placing greater emphasis on sustainability and ESG considerations.

Growing Inheritance Tax receipts

HMRC’s Inheritance Tax receipts in June 2022 reached £726m, the highest total since records began and up from the £564m recorded in May. In the three months to June, receipts reached £1.8bn which is £300m more than the same period last year.

Frozen tax thresholds and the booming property market were key drivers of growing IHT receipts.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (‘OBR’) forecasts that as many as 6.5 per cent of estates could be liable for Inheritance Tax by 2026 – nearly double the 3.7 per cent that the figures show for the latest financial year. The OBR has also revised Inheritance Tax forecasts up by an average of £400m a year compared to October 2021 estimates because of increased mortality as well as higher house prices.

HMRC collected £6.1bn from annual inheritance tax receipts, in the prior tax year, up 14% (from £5.4bn) on the previous year with the average bill increasing by £7,000 per estate to £216,000

With the AIM market down substantially from 2021 highs, now could be a great time to consider AIM as part of a sustainable Inheritance Tax plan.

To find out more about the benefits of investing in AIM for Inheritance Tax planning purposes, where sustainability is also a key consideration, please speak to our Business Development Manager Jonathan Bramall via email [email protected]  or phone 01923 713 894.

This video presentation here provides a brief introduction to the Fundamental AIM IHT portfolio service, while our webinar here reviews the second quarter of the year and discusses our ESG and PRI developments.

Fundamental Asset Management
www.fundamentalasset.com