It’s that time of the year again. The end of the tax year is rapidly approaching, and that means it’s time to start thinking about what you should do with you annual ISA allowance before it disappears.
With that in mind, here are three stocks that look to be great investments for your ISA.
Bricks and mortar
You can’t hold physical property in an ISA, but you can own real estate investment trusts, which for most investors is probably a more realistic.
British Land (LSE: BLND) is one of the UK’s premier REITs. The firm owns property around the UK, including several high profile buildings in London, the sort of property private investors would never be able to own without REITs.
And right now, British Land is trading at a deep discount to its published net asset value meaning that investors can essentially acquire a basket of high quality commercial properties at below market prices. Specifically, shares in the group are currently trading at a discount to NAV of 34%, a discount that may be too hard for some investors to pass up. British Land’s current loan-to-value ratio is 30.5%. The shares support a dividend yield of 4.8%.
British Land’s position in the property sector, its low valuation, and dividend yield are all reasons why the company could be a great ISA investment.
Long term savings
Aviva (LSE: AV) is one of the UK’s premier long term savings and insurance companies. The nature of the group’s business means that it is the perfect long term investment, as management has to ensure the business remains solvent to meet clients’ retirement obligations.
What’s more, as Aviva manages hundreds of billions of pounds for clients, the company collects a steady stream of fee income, which gives management a certain degree of clarity over cash flows. This gives me confidence that Aviva’s dividend payout will not be cut anytime soon as the payout is funded by the steady stream of fee income.
With a dividend yield of 5.2% predicted for 2017, I believe Aviva is the perfect dividend stock to hold in a tax-free ISA wrapper.
Income champion
Last year, the then-Chancellor George Osborne brought in new dividend tax rules, which introduced a new 7.5% dividend tax for any dividend income over £5,000 received by a taxpayer within the fiscal year. This change has made ISAs even more attractive for sheltering dividend income from the tax man, and it also means ISAs wrappers are the best place to hide high dividend stocks such as Games Workshop (LSE: GAW).
Games Workshop is one of the London’s dividend champions. The fantasy game group throws off an enormous amount of cash, thanks to its operating profit margin of nearly 15%. Most of the cash generated from operations is returned to investors via dividends. Indeed, during the past five years, the company has paid out nearly 100% of earnings per share to investors via dividends.
For the year ending 31 May 2017, City analysts are expecting the group to pay a total dividend per share of 50p, a yield of 5.8% at current prices. To get the most out of this payout and avoid Osborne’s dividend tax, it’s best to own Games Workshop in an ISA.
