With EIS, the universe of companies you can choose from is limited to unquoted companies with no more than 250 employees and gross assets of less than £15m. So you cannot make an EIS investment in BP, for example. But there are thousands of well-established, profitable companies that fit the criteria. And many of them are arguably less risky than BP. You cannot use EIS to invest in banks or property companies, but that may be an element of diversity that clients are willing to forgo now that leverage is on the wane.