45 year old with spare cash looking for advice

[angryInch]

Thanks for all the replies everybody, some very useful info in there and some food for thought.

To answer some question/comments:

That almost certainly means equities. Ideally direct investments given the lower charges and tax, but indirectly via unit linked funds or ETFs is also an option.

Yeah, my rough plan was about 30-40% in ETF's (global ones like MSCI and VWCE), this percentage would be higher if it were not for the deemed disposal rules and higher tax on ETF.
Was going to put another 30-40% in directly invested stocks (things like like Berkshire Hathaway, and attempting to have lots of small investments in different sectors, trying to keep to low/medium risk and just hold long term).
About 10-20% in gold, bonds and other inflationary hedges.
Remaining amount I was going to use on riskier assets, small amount of crypto, alternative investments, risker stocks, peer-to-peer lending.

Your RSUs seem to be more of a potential future windfall so shouldn't impact any equity investment decisions as far as I can see.

Company going public is not a sure thing. There are lots of cases of failed IPOs out there and you should make plans for what happens if it doesn't work out

I'm not trying to pour cold water on this and thankfully you are in a very strong position outside of the RSUs. Personally I would treat these RSUs closer to a lottery ticket than an asset. Hopefully some day it comes good and you get a windfall, but in the meantime I would ignore them in my financial planning.

Am completely ignoring RSU from my income planning, as said by others, anything can happen and they may never materialize. I only mentioned them above to give a complete picture (and to get any advice that might pertain to them). But personally, I am making all my financial plans on the assumption that these are worthless.

Are all the holdings in your employer RSUs or are do you have some options as well?

Some options, vast majority RSU's

2-3k a month as a family or just you personally?

For family. (though I am not including the buy-to-let mortgage payments in my expenditure, as the rent more than covers them - also, thinking of paying these off now that ECB rates have risen - though its a balance as I get tax relief on those payments, but its getting close to a tipping point of being worth paying down)

I don't think bank collapse is likely but you should still spread €850k across several institutions, up to the guaranteed €100k per depositor or €200k per couple;

Already done, have it all spread out between European banks all covered by a 100k guarantee with no more than 100k in any single account

Have you considered funding or donating to a good cause, perhaps a local one? This is a serious suggestion - it can bring many benefits in many ways.

Yes, and I have an do. Though I didn't think it was relevant to mention in the context of this post.

Half of your wealth seems to be in one company. As soon as you can, you should sell these shares and take the CGT hit. When everything is going well, especially at IPO time, people think that the company can only ever improve. Great companies can suddenly fail. Personally, I would sell all of them, but if you decide to hold onto €500k worth of them, fair enough.

Its really just paper wealth for now, and may never materialize. But if it does, the plan is to immediately sell all of it and diversify into other investments. Don't think I would leave any still invested with the company, and if I did, it would be done on the same basis that I would choose to invest in any other company.

3M vs 1.5M by moving to another lovely country of your choosing for a while. Give it some thought.

This is interesting, will definitely give it some thought.

Advice may be to get a financial advisor, and would really appreciate any recommendations people may have.

(+ lots of other similar comments). Yeah, will definitely be seeking professional advice, just wanted to get some there, as I think it helps to go into these things with some ideas

RSUs tend to be subject to income tax not cgt.

Correct, it will be income tax (+ the usual USC, PRSI, etc) as it will all be taxed as income once the company goes public. Further gains after that would come under CGT.

You and spouse should already start making a €3k a year transfer to each of your kids that will not count for CAT purposes under the small gifts exemption. So that's €12k a year. There are various products and I've seen bare trusts recommended here on aAM;

This is a great suggestion, and one that was not on my radar at all. Any products in particular you would recommend. I will definitely be doing this.

Thanks again to all for the great replies, been a long time reader of this site, and most of my financial knowledge has came from here and similar reddit forums. This is a great community you have here.