Key person cover, director pensions, corporate investment, succession planning and employee benefits,
addressed in the order a business can actually absorb them.
A business does not fail because its owners chose the wrong product. It fails because a dependency was left unaddressed while attention was elsewhere.
The same hierarchy that governs a household governs a company, in a different order and with different instruments. Cash flow before continuity. Continuity before reward. Reward before extraction. Extraction before exit.
We advise owners and directors within that sequence, and we say plainly when a decision is being taken out of turn.
Across decades of advising Irish businesses — from owner-managed firms to professional partnerships and family enterprises in transition — we have observed that the most consequential financial errors are almost never errors of analysis. They are errors of sequence. A director’s pension funded to the cap before key person protection has been arranged. A succession plan considered for the first time when the owner is already six months from intended retirement. An employee benefit pack extended before the cash architecture beneath it has been tested.
Where a tier sits outside our regulated remit — banking facilities, commercial general insurance, the legal architecture of share transfers, the detailed mechanics of corporation tax — we say so, and we coordinate with your accountant, solicitor and banker accordingly.
— Passing on what has been built.
— How value created inside the business reaches the owner.
— The most powerful tax-efficient vehicle in Irish business.
— The benefit pack as competitive position.
— Clearing the path before the journey begins.
— Insuring the people, the borrowings and the obligations on which the business depends.
— The ground beneath the business.
Tier 1 · Business
Foundation stack — The ground beneath the business.
Before any insurance policy is taken out, any pension contributed to, any capital expenditure approved, a business must understand the geometry of its own cash. Cash flow is to a business what oxygen is to a person — without it, every other decision becomes academic.
We do not manage cash flow itself. That is properly the work of the finance director, the company accountant and the company’s bankers. Where we engage at this tier, it is to ensure the affordability of the upper tiers is anchored in the cash reality below. An employee benefit pack the business cannot sustain through a soft quarter is not a benefit pack. It is an exposure.
For businesses that have built reserves materially above what the trading cycle requires, the question becomes one of deployment. Cash on deposit is rarely the optimal long-term home for surplus reserves.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
| Corporate Cash Management | Sizing the working capital reserve against the actual trading cycle, so the plan above it need not be unwound when a major debtor pays late. |
| Surplus Cash Investment Strategy | Establishing what proportion of reserves is genuinely surplus, and over what horizon it can be put to work. |
| Corporate Investment Bonds | A life-assurance investment contract held in the company name, taxed under the corporate exit tax regime. |
| Discretionary Portfolio Management (DPM) | A managed portfolio under a defined investment mandate for companies with substantial surplus reserves. PPFS coordinates; day-to-day management sits with that firm. |
| Inflation & Currency Considerations | What holding reserves in cash costs in real terms, and what non-euro exposure introduces. |
“Cash flow is rarely what business owners come to us to discuss. It is, without exception, where every conversation we have eventually returns.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Could the business meet six months of fixed outgoings without drawing further on its banking facilities?
When was your working capital reserve last sized against your actual trading cycle, not the one assumed five years ago?
If your reserves materially exceed what the trading cycle requires, is the surplus deployed deliberately, or sitting on deposit by default?
Tier 1 of 7
Tier 2 · Business
Foundation Stack · Insuring the people, the borrowings and the obligations on which the business depends.
A trading company’s most valuable assets rarely appear on its balance sheet. The relationships, expertise and commercial drive of the individuals who built the business — and the agreements between those individuals that govern its future — represent a concentration of value that standard commercial insurance does not protect.
This is the tier on which we engage most often with Irish business owners, because in our experience it is the tier where the gap between what exists and what is needed is widest.
Protection here begins not with the people but with the obligations they have personally underwritten. Where a business borrowing carries a personal guarantee — and on the Irish balance sheet, most do — the conversation must begin there.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Corporate Loan Protection | Life cover, with optional serious illness cover, structured to clear an outstanding business borrowing on the death or diagnosed serious illness of the principal borrower or guarantor. Begin here. | |
Personal Guarantee Protection for Directors | Cover addressing the exposure a director carries personally when a facility is supported by a personal guarantee. | |
Keyperson Insurance | Life cover, with optional serious illness cover, on the loss of an individual whose departure would materially harm the business. Proceeds compensate for the disruption of replacing them, or for revenue lost in the interim. | |
Co-Director Protection | Cover under a buy-out arrangement, by which surviving shareholders have funded the means to buy out the share of a deceased colleague at a pre-agreed valuation. | |
Shareholder Protection & Cross-Option Agreements | The legal architecture that sits alongside the cover, so that the survivors and the estate each know what happens and at what price. | |
Partnership Protection | The equivalent for professional partnerships. Same insurance mechanic, different legal documentation under the partnership deed. | |
Pension Term Assurance for Directors | Life cover structured within the pension wrapper, which can materially reduce the post-tax cost of the same headline cover. | |
Executive & Group Income Protection | Replacement income where illness or injury prevents an individual working for an extended period, structured at director level or as a group benefit. | |
Serious Illness Cover | A lump sum on diagnosis of a defined critical illness. Complementary to income protection, not an alternative to it. | |
The cover provided is subject to the terms, conditions, exclusions and definitions of the policy contract issued by the underwriting insurer. Buy-out and cross-option arrangements require correctly drafted shareholders’ or partnership agreements and appropriate company documentation. PPFS coordinates with your solicitor on the legal documentation.
“The most common protection failure in Irish private companies is not the absence of cover. It is cover that no longer fits the share structure — written when the shareholders were two equal founders, never updated when the third joined.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
If you, or any director, ceased to be available tomorrow, who is contractually responsible for the bank facility — and is that obligation insured?
Have you read the shareholders’ or partnership agreement against the protection cover currently in force?
If your most important non-replaceable colleague did not arrive at work tomorrow, what would change in the business, and what would it cost?
Tier 2 of 7
Tier 3 · Business
Foundation Stack · Clearing the path before the journey begins.
Debt is not, in itself, a corporate failing. Discipline around the cost and the structure of it, however, is a precondition of every tier above. A business carrying high-cost debt while contributing to director pensions has accepted a guaranteed cost in pursuit of a return that may or may not exceed it. The arithmetic, while uncomfortable, is not in dispute.
We do not provide commercial banking advice. The work at this tier sits primarily with the finance director, the company accountant and the company’s bankers. Where we engage, it is to ensure the cost of debt service is consistent with the affordability of the upper tiers, and to coordinate where insurance secures a borrowing.
For businesses in a growth phase, debt is not the only route to capital.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Facility Review | A periodic assessment of banking facilities against the alternatives in the Irish market, and against the cost the upper tiers can sustain. | |
Term Loans, Asset Finance & Invoice Discounting | The three principal corporate debt structures. These sit with your bankers; we coordinate where they intersect with the financial-planning architecture. | |
Employment Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS) — capital raising | The principal Irish tax-relieved equity-raising route for qualifying companies. The structuring of a round is the work of a specialist EIIS adviser; we coordinate where shareholders or directors are considering EIIS investment as part of their personal wealth plan. | |
“Investment discipline that does not begin with debt discipline is, in our experience with corporate clients as much as with families, rarely sustained.”
— Paddy Keenan MSc QFA, Principal & Senior Financial Consultant
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Is any business debt costing more than the post-tax return on capital you expect from the use of those funds?
When did you last formally review your banking facilities against the alternatives in the Irish market?
If growth capital is required, have you considered the equity route alongside debt?
Tier 3 of 7
Tier 4 · Business
Growth Stack · The benefit pack as competitive position.
Once the foundation tiers are in order, the question of how the business compensates and retains its people becomes the most consequential single discipline for sustained competitive position. The benefit pack is not a compliance exercise. It is the firm’s offer to the labour market it competes in — and, properly designed, the most tax-efficient route to compensating employees beyond gross salary.
Auto-Enrolment is live Every Irish employer must assess every employee against the Auto-Enrolment eligibility criteria and enrol qualifying employees not already covered by an existing occupational arrangement. Employers without a qualifying scheme are defaulting their workforce into the State system. An existing, well-designed occupational scheme is the discipline that retains the employer’s control over fund choice, contribution levels and member experience.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Group Pension Schemes | Occupational provision through a Master Trust, a Group PRSA, or for the largest employers a single-employer scheme. |
Auto-Enrolment Employer Readiness (My Future Fund) | Assessing the workforce against the eligibility criteria and establishing whether existing provision satisfies the obligation. |
Death-in-Service / Group Life Cover | A lump sum on death in employment, typically expressed as a multiple of salary. |
Group Income Protection (Permanent Health Insurance) | Replacement income during long-term illness, often with pension premium protection so retirement saving continues during a claim. |
Group Serious Illness Cover | A lump sum on diagnosis of a defined critical illness, distinct from the income-replacement function of income protection. |
Fund Range & Lifestyle Strategies | The default strategy that shifts asset allocation as members approach retirement, alongside risk-rated, sustainable and self-directed fund options. |
Approved Profit Sharing Scheme (APSS) | A Revenue-approved share scheme allocating shares to employees free of income tax, subject to a holding period. |
Key Employee Engagement Programme (KEEP) | A share option scheme designed for small and medium-sized enterprises, taxed under the capital gains regime rather than as income. |
Employee Financial Wellness Programmes | Structured education on the package itself, so that what the employer provides is understood and valued. |
Total Reward Statements & Benefits Communication | Setting out for each employee the full value of what they receive beyond salary. |
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Is your business compliant with the Auto-Enrolment obligation, and is your existing scheme designed to satisfy it without defaulting employees to the State system?
What is the rate of regretted staff turnover in your firm, and what is it costing in recruitment, onboarding and lost productivity?
Does the benefit pack you offer match what your competitors in the same talent market offer?
Tier 4 of 7
Tier 5 · Business
Growth Stack · Retail Master Trusts, PRSAs and Self-Directed Pensions.
For the owner-director of a trading company, the correct pension is not principally a retirement vehicle. It is the most powerful mechanism available under Irish tax law for extracting value from a profitable business, growing that capital inside a tax-privileged wrapper, and converting it into a retirement income that reflects the enterprise you have built.
Three compounding reliefs operate together: corporation tax relief on the company’s contribution, tax-free growth inside the fund, and a substantial tax-free lump sum at retirement subject to Revenue limits. The funding limits for directors are materially more generous than the age-related employee limits.
The IORP II deadline has passed Single-member Executive Pension Plans and standalone self-administered arrangements ceased to accept new tax-relievable contributions following the IORP II governance deadline of 22 April 2026. Any director still holding a pre-2021 scheme is no longer building relievable provision through it, and contributions paid into a non-compliant arrangement do not attract corporation tax relief. If that describes your position, the migration cannot be deferred further. We open this question in every relevant engagement.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Master Trust Executive Pensions | A multi-employer occupational scheme bringing director pension provision under a fully governed trust structure. The direct replacement for the Executive Pension Plan. |
IORP II Compliance Review | Establishing whether an existing arrangement remains compliant, and what migration requires. |
One-Member Arrangements & Single-Director Schemes | The legacy structures, and what has to happen to them. |
PRSA Contributions for Directors | The portable alternative to a Master Trust, suiting arrangements where individual portability is valued. |
Self-Administered & Self-Directed Pension Schemes | Structures operated under a Pensioneer Trustee, allowing direct investment in equities, bonds, certain alternatives and, subject to Revenue conditions, commercial property. |
Maximum Pension Funding Calculations | Establishing the maximum the company can contribute in the current year, and what headroom remains from previous years. |
Director Pension Consolidation | Bringing entitlements from former employments together, including through Personal Retirement Bonds structured on a self-directed basis. |
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) | Director-level contributions where headroom remains after the principal scheme is funded. |
Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) Tracking | Monitoring projected fund value against Revenue’s overall cap on tax-advantaged pension value, so that a chargeable excess is anticipated rather than discovered. |
“Of every plan we model for a business owner, the director pension is the single line that most reliably exceeds the projections built around it. IORP II changed the vehicle; it did not change the arithmetic.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
If you held a pre-2021 Executive Pension Plan, has the migration been completed — or is the scheme now suspended on tax-relievable contributions?
Have you funded your director pension to the maximum the company can support this year, and the previous five?
Is your projected fund value at retirement above or below the Standard Fund Threshold?
Tier 5 of 7
Tier 5 · Business
Growth Stack · Retail Master Trusts, PRSAs and Self-Directed Pensions.
For the owner-director of a trading company, the correct pension is not principally a retirement vehicle. It is the most powerful mechanism available under Irish tax law for extracting value from a profitable business, growing that capital inside a tax-privileged wrapper, and converting it into a retirement income that reflects the enterprise you have built.
Three compounding reliefs operate together: corporation tax relief on the company’s contribution, tax-free growth inside the fund, and a substantial tax-free lump sum at retirement subject to Revenue limits. The funding limits for directors are materially more generous than the age-related employee limits.
The IORP II deadline has passed Single-member Executive Pension Plans and standalone self-administered arrangements ceased to accept new tax-relievable contributions following the IORP II governance deadline of 22 April 2026. Any director still holding a pre-2021 scheme is no longer building relievable provision through it, and contributions paid into a non-compliant arrangement do not attract corporation tax relief. If that describes your position, the migration cannot be deferred further. We open this question in every relevant engagement.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Master Trust Executive Pensions | A multi-employer occupational scheme bringing director pension provision under a fully governed trust structure. The direct replacement for the Executive Pension Plan. |
IORP II Compliance Review | Establishing whether an existing arrangement remains compliant, and what migration requires. |
One-Member Arrangements & Single-Director Schemes | The legacy structures, and what has to happen to them. |
PRSA Contributions for Directors | The portable alternative to a Master Trust, suiting arrangements where individual portability is valued. |
Self-Administered & Self-Directed Pension Schemes | Structures operated under a Pensioneer Trustee, allowing direct investment in equities, bonds, certain alternatives and, subject to Revenue conditions, commercial property. |
Maximum Pension Funding Calculations | Establishing the maximum the company can contribute in the current year, and what headroom remains from previous years. |
Director Pension Consolidation | Bringing entitlements from former employments together, including through Personal Retirement Bonds structured on a self-directed basis. |
Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) | Director-level contributions where headroom remains after the principal scheme is funded. |
Standard Fund Threshold (SFT) Tracking | Monitoring projected fund value against Revenue’s overall cap on tax-advantaged pension value, so that a chargeable excess is anticipated rather than discovered. |
“Of every plan we model for a business owner, the director pension is the single line that most reliably exceeds the projections built around it. IORP II changed the vehicle; it did not change the arithmetic.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
If you held a pre-2021 Executive Pension Plan, has the migration been completed — or is the scheme now suspended on tax-relievable contributions?
Have you funded your director pension to the maximum the company can support this year, and the previous five?
Is your projected fund value at retirement above or below the Standard Fund Threshold?
Tier 5 of 7
Tier 6 · Business
Growth Stack · How value created inside the business reaches the owner.
The fifth tier builds the director pension. The sixth addresses the wider question of how value generated inside the business converts into value held by the owner outside it, and how that value continues to compound through a phased transition out of executive responsibility.
The right answer is rarely a single instrument. It is a deliberate blend, modelled against the owner’s marginal tax position, the company’s profitability, and the long-term horizon of the business itself.
For most owner-managed businesses, the cleanest exit from operational responsibility is not a cliff edge but a graduated step-down: the owner reduces hours, the senior team takes more authority, and the pension begins to do the work it was funded for.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Salary vs Dividend Optimisation | The right balance between salary bearing income tax under PAYE and dividends taxed under self-assessment, given the marginal rate of the recipient and the corporation tax position of the company. |
Pension Contribution as an Extraction Route | Modelling what a euro of corporate profit delivers to the owner through the pension against what the same euro delivers as salary today. |
Phased Retirement Drawdown | A structured combination of partial tax-free lump sum, partial transfer to an Approved Retirement Fund, and continued contributions on residual earned income, smoothing the tax position across multiple years. |
Self-Directed ARF | An Approved Retirement Fund within which the owner retains direct investment authority over the underlying assets. Often the natural post-retirement vehicle for owner-managers accustomed to active capital allocation. |
Personal Investment of Extracted Profits | Regular savings plans and investment bonds for accumulation-phase capital, direct equities for owners with the appetite, and discretionary portfolio management for owners with substantial personal wealth. |
EIIS Investment at Personal Level | Income tax relief at the marginal rate on capital deployed into qualifying Irish companies, as part of the owner’s personal wealth plan. |
Personal Section 72 Cover | A whole-of-life policy at owner level, written in trust, sized against the future CAT liability a transfer to children will eventually generate. Coordinated with Tier Seven. |
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Of every euro of corporate profit, how much eventually arrives in your personal hand, and how much goes to tax?
Have you modelled the comparative outcomes of salary, dividend and pension extraction over a ten-year horizon?
Is your post-retirement income strategy built around a Self-Directed ARF, a managed ARF, or a phased combination — and is the choice deliberate?
Tier 6 of 7
Tier 7 · Business
Legacy · The final expression of the plan.
At the seventh tier the question shifts from operation to transmission. The business assembled across a working life does not, in itself, secure its passage either to the next generation or to a buyer. Without structured intent, even the most carefully built enterprise can be materially diminished by tax, by family complexity, or by the simple absence of a documented plan.
Three Irish tax reliefs operate together to determine how much of the business’s value reaches the owner’s hand on disposal, or the next generation’s on inheritance. Each carries qualifying conditions. The planning lies in structuring early enough that all three can apply.
The single most under-prepared element of an exit is the buyer’s due diligence. Hidden key-person risk, undocumented client relationships and incomplete records routinely drag valuations down at the precise moment they should be holding firm. The planning lever sits years before the transaction.
WHAT SITS AT THIS TIER
Comprehensive Estate Exposure Audit | Establishing what the combined tax exposure looks like today, on a sale and on a family transfer, before any structure is put in place. |
Retirement Relief from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) | Relief available to an individual aged 55 or over on the disposal of qualifying business assets, whether by sale or by transfer to a family member. |
Revised Entrepreneur Relief | A reduced CGT rate on qualifying gains, subject to a statutory lifetime cap. Frequently the principal lever for owner-managers below the Retirement Relief age threshold. |
Business Relief from Capital Acquisitions Tax (CAT) | Relief reducing the taxable value of qualifying business assets transferred at death or in lifetime. Operates on the recipient side. |
Family Business Succession Planning | Transfer to one or more children, often through structured share gifting over years rather than a single transfer at retirement. |
Management Buy-Out (MBO) Planning | Sale to the existing management team, and the financial planning that surrounds the owner’s side of it. |
Pre-Sale Planning & Wealth Extraction | The work done in the years before a transaction, so that the reliefs are available and the proceeds arrive into a structure that is ready for them. |
Section 72 Whole-of-Life Cover for Estate Liquidity | Cover written in trust to fund a future CAT liability free of CAT itself, so the business need not be sold to pay the tax on it. |
Section 73 Savings Plans for Lifetime Wealth Transfer | A regular-premium plan taken out by intended beneficiaries, with proceeds applied to discharge their CAT liability. |
Discretionary Trusts in Estate Planning | Holding capital for the next generation with retained control where circumstances require flexibility. |
Multi-Generational Wealth Planning | Bringing the next generation into the conversation early enough that the plan is understood before it is needed. |
Our role at this tier is the financial-planning coordination: the director pension drawdown that begins as the salary ends, the Section 72 cover that funds the eventual tax, the personal investment of consideration received, and the coordination with the next generation where a family transfer is the route.
The legal mechanics of the transfer sit with your solicitor. The detailed tax structuring sits with your tax adviser. The running of the sale or buy-out process sits with the corporate finance team.
“Generation after generation, the businesses we have served longest are those for whom this tier has been considered, structured, and reviewed in advance — not contemplated for the first time when the event has already arrived.”
— Barry Oliver LIB QFA EFA, Principal & Founder
QUESTIONS WORTH SITTING WITH
Is the exit you intend documented, or only intended?
Have you quantified the tax exposure on a third-party sale and on a family transfer, and modelled the reliefs against both?
If a transaction were to commence in the next twelve months, do you know who the four professionals at the table would be?
Tier 7 of 7
Keyperson Insurance
Co-Director Protection
Partnership Protection
Shareholder Protection & Cross-Option Agreements
Corporate Loan Protection
Personal Guarantee Protection for Directors
Pension Term Assurance for Directors
Master Trust Executive Pensions
Self-Administered & Self-Directed Pension Schemes
Maximum Pension Funding Calculations
PRSA Contributions for Directors
One-Member Arrangements & Single-Director Schemes
Director Pension Consolidation
IORP II Compliance Review
Corporate Cash Management
Corporate Investment Bonds
Surplus Cash Investment Strategy
Inflation & Currency Considerations
Comprehensive Estate Exposure Audit
Retirement Relief from Capital Gains Tax
Revised Entrepreneur Relief
Business Relief from Capital Acquisitions Tax
Family Business Succession Planning
Pre-Sale Planning & Wealth Extraction
Management Buy-Out (MBO) Planning
Holding Company Structures for Exit
Section 72 Whole-of-Life Cover for Estate Liquidity
Section 73 Savings Plans for Lifetime Wealth Transfer
Discretionary Trusts in Estate Planning
Family Investment Companies
Multi-Generational Wealth Planning
Coordination with Solicitor, Accountant & Tax Advisor
Group Pension Schemes
Auto-Enrolment Employer Readiness — My Future Fund
Death-in-Service / Group Life Cover
Group Income Protection (PHI)
Group Serious Illness Cover
Employee Financial Wellness Programmes
Total Reward Statements & Benefits Communication
Keyperson Insurance
Co-Director Protection
Partnership Protection
Shareholder Protection & Cross-Option Agreements
Corporate Loan Protection
Personal Guarantee Protection for Directors
Pension Term Assurance for Directors
Master Trust Executive Pensions
Self-Administered & Self-Directed Pension Schemes
Maximum Pension Funding Calculations
PRSA Contributions for Directors
One-Member Arrangements & Single-Director Schemes
Director Pension Consolidation
IORP II Compliance Review
Corporate Cash Management
Corporate Investment Bonds
Surplus Cash Investment Strategy
Inflation & Currency Considerations
Comprehensive Estate Exposure Audit
Retirement Relief from Capital Gains Tax
Revised Entrepreneur Relief
Business Relief from Capital Acquisitions Tax
Family Business Succession Planning
Pre-Sale Planning & Wealth Extraction
Management Buy-Out (MBO) Planning
Holding Company Structures for Exit
Section 72 Whole-of-Life Cover for Estate Liquidity
Section 73 Savings Plans for Lifetime Wealth Transfer
Discretionary Trusts in Estate Planning
Family Investment Companies
Multi-Generational Wealth Planning
Coordination with Solicitor, Accountant & Tax Advisor
Group Pension Schemes
Auto-Enrolment Employer Readiness — My Future Fund
Death-in-Service / Group Life Cover
Group Income Protection (PHI)
Group Serious Illness Cover
Employee Financial Wellness Programmes
Total Reward Statements & Benefits Communication
