MT25 | Henley & Partners On Relocating To Achieve Your Financial Goals

Discussion Topics: Henley & Partners on Relocating to Achieve Your Financial Goals

• Why do people look for residency and citizenship?
• The comparison of desirable locations now vs earlier
• The top residency programs in the world
• How to get started with residency programs

Transcript: Henley & Partners on Relocating to Achieve Your Financial Goals

Hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of MoneyTok, where we help make personal finance and investing simple and accessible through both my own experience. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years now. This show is about money and wealth creation. And we talk about so many ways of making money, bought retirement planning about stocks, bonds, gold, real estate, crypto, and so many kinds of things.

Henley and Partners have a long history of helping financially successful individuals figure out how to achieve their longer-term goals through alternate residency or even citizenship. Our guests, Rory and Bhairav are going to help us understand the kinds of situations in which you might want to consider such a move, the locations that welcome financially successful individuals, and how you could get started planning such a move.

Rory and Bhairav, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Before we get going, would you like to give us a brief overview of Henly & Partners?

Thanks a lot for having us. It’s a pleasure. Uh, so my name is Rory McDade. I’m a director, um, at Henley and partners in their Singapore office heavily in partners.

We are the global leader and citizenship on residency by investment. So that basically means that we help high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals acquire new citizenship or residency. We’ve been around for more than 25 years. We’ve got 35 offices globally and there are two key parts to the business.

Number one is private client advisory. Um, that’s part of the business, the buyer of an eye or a. So that’s everything from onboarding clients, monitoring the entire process and it’s ed until ultimately those families come out the other side with a new citizenship or residency on the second part of the business is what makes Henley pretty unique compared to any of the other industry players.

And that’s our government advisory team. So we strategically advise governments globally. In terms of creating, structuring, implementing, and marketing these programs. So you might be familiar, with some of the programs in the Caribbean, for example, countries like in Kids St. Lucia Tega Dominica, and Grenada. More recently we advise the UK, the UK home office on their tier one investor visa. We also designed the most successful program globally, which is in Malta, moving across to Asia where the official concessionaire to the government of Thailand for their tiling residency visa.

Thanks, Rory. I guess it’s no surprise that Henley is such a respected name in the space. I touched upon this earlier in the intro, you know about people wanting to move for wealth preservation reasons. Is that the bulk of your clients? Or what are other reasons why people might want to relocate or look for alternate residency or even citizenship through you?

Thank you, Amit. I’m Bhairav, an Associate Director with Henley & Partners based in Mumbai but service global clients.

Firstly, I would like to distinguish between residence and citizenship specifically in the Indian context. Over 80% of our Indian clients opt for an alternate residence, which essentially allows the individual the right to live, work and study and appears as a sticker in one of the leaves of your passport. Some of our clients have multiple residencies that fulfill different needs, which I shall elaborate on shortly. On the other hand, India does not allow dual citizenship so once individuals gain an alternate citizenship, they must surrender their Indian citizenship. A Surrender Certificate is issued to applicants who do so at the Passport Office in India, Indian Consulate, or Embassy abroad. Subsequently, they may apply for an Overseas Citizen of India Card. Guidelines, eligibility, and processes for Resident Indians and NRIs are available on The Passport India and OCR Services websites.

Individuals and their families seek our advice on alternate residence or citizenship for many reasons:

• Some may want to structure and internationally diversify their lifestyle, core interests, and key assets. Post-pandemic, access to healthcare has been one of the most important reasons.
• Our Caribbean Citizenship programs are very popular from a mobility point of view and offer unprecedented access to about 150 countries either visa-free or visa-on-arrival.
• Many large/joint families look at our programs from an estate and legacy planning perspective.
• Entrepreneurs view these opportunities to expand their business territories, tax and investment planning, travel mobility, and their children’s education.
• Many UHNIs looking at second homes in Greece and Italy, for example, combine international property ownership with these residence rights.
• If there is a risk of violence, persecution, or unfair discrimination, some may want to live in a neutral country that offers more personal security and privacy. Safety for the whole family can be found in these stable, socio-political sanctuaries.

OK, that’s a lot of different and pretty good reasons for wanting another option vs where one is currently resident.

The most compelling reason that underpins the intent is having an insurance policy/safety net/plan B to build resilience against any macro adversity. However, before we contract with them, we perform the initial due diligence on the prospect, as well as their family members who will be included in RBI or CBI application, and third-party remitter/benefactor, if applicable. This is required in order to ensure that we have eliminated every possibility to onboard someone we should not. In case the prospect and/or benefactor declare themselves as politically exposed, or they were previously declined for residence or citizenship, the enhanced due diligence must be performed by an internationally recognized third party.

Haha ok so essentially people want to do it as a kind of insurance plan, but you obviously don’t want to be the insurance for someone with baggage, no pun intended!

So can a person move just anywhere with your assistance or are there countries or locations that are more welcoming of such moves or potentially even more attractive in terms of helping people achieve the goals you outlined previously? And is this for only billionaires or can regular individuals also make such a move? What are some of the popular RBI and CBI programs with examples of a successful transition?

That is an interesting question, Amit. Our popular programs today are more evolved as our market demographics have widened. Earlier we had only the wealthiest Forbes List as our clients but now the affluent seek our expertise as well. In the same vein, we have started observing a broadening of our program uptakes – from popular jurisdictions like the US, the UK, Canada, and the Caribbean, we now get increasing demand for countries like Portugal, Malta, and Greece. Also, many countries have rolled out talent-based programs to attract high-caliber and promising individuals which are at a much lower entry point compared to investment-based programs. The merit-based programs of Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US are therefore a popular option.

The Golden Residence Permit of Portugal is very popular since it opens up the very clear and straightforward option to convert to citizenship after 5 years. Portugal is considered one of the world’s most globalized nations and is ranked among the top five countries on the Global Peace Index. With a low physical presence, it offers access to quality healthcare and education. One of our clients came to us with a very specific intent which was for their son to access the world’s best football training institute.

Driven by its reputation for neutrality, stability, predictability, and security, and with English as the official language, Malta is Europe’s leading investment location for blockchain entrepreneurs. During Brexit, not only were many holding companies set up there but also many head offices too, to better access Europe’s talent pool and “blockchain-friendly” atmosphere. It is highly attractive to families considering a second home in Europe with excellent visa-free travel mobility. Not surprisingly, it currently witnesses some of the highest traffic of luxury yachts and private jets. A family which has taken the Malta permanent residence enjoys a charming property and the Mediterranean climate on the island of Gozo. The younger teen studying in Sweden where education is free and the elder one is currently working in Germany.

Greece is strategically located at the crossroads to Europe, Asia, and Africa and is known for its charm and beauty and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. As a member state of the EU, Greece offers its residents and citizens a number of reassuring benefits including high levels of safety and security, excellent education, opportunities, robust healthcare options, and a dependable rule of law. However, golden visa permit holders may not be employed in Greece but may hold shares and receive income from the dividends of a company registered in Greece.

Many choose the Greek residence as it has a processing time of only one to two months and the physical presence requirement, mandatory in other programs, is not required at all. However, despite this “advantage”, many UHNIs have their second homes in the picturesque islands of Corfu and Crete. One of our clients, who had read Gerald Durrel’s My Family and Other Animals, fell in love with Corfu’s charm. Over the centuries, Corfu had been influenced by the Venetians, French, and British so has become part of the Western rather than the Levantine world. It was here that the first Greek University (the Ionian Academy), the first Philharmonic Orchestra, and the First School of Fine Arts were founded so, despite its size, it is culturally rich.

Australia’s Global Talent Independent, UK Global Talent and Tier 1 Innovator, and US O-1 visa programs are for those who can demonstrate relevant experience and recognition in arts, sports, business, and tech industries. It gives individuals the opportunity to leverage their professional accomplishments. I remember an interesting case wherein a prospect in the cybersecurity space had missed the annual quota for the Australian skilled worker visa. Coincidentally, he connected on LinkedIn and needless to say, he was one of our quickest conversions not only from an onboarding standpoint but also in diligently completing the Expression of Interest process in a few days typically this takes a few weeks. Contrary to misconceptions, Australia has become much more diverse and accepting of different cultures. The family is very well settled in Australia with the children being absorbed into the education system. They always enjoyed the outdoors and Australia has a great outback and many touristy things to do.

OK, so it seems like there are quite a few locations, especially in Europe and Australia where one could go. And the requirements aren’t always financial – you could actually move on the basis of your expertise and qualifications as well. This is great news for those of our listeners who might not meet financial thresholds but could certainly demonstrate the required levels of expertise. I’m sure a lot of people would be excited by this. How should they get started?

Many prospects have specific requests but sometimes, they seek advice on a few of their shortlisted options. I would be happy to share an introductory mail with a comparative summary of our popular RBI and CBI programs and subsequently guide them over a call. I am reachable via email on bhairav.desai@henleyglobal.com

Thanks, Bhairav, I’ll give your email in our show notes.

Just to summarize:

• Alternate residency or citizenship is a good plan B for people seeking lifestyle or business diversification or insurance against risk.
• Places like Portugal Malta Greece are good locations for investment options and Australia, Canada, and even UK and US are options for those with the right qualifications/ expertise.

Thanks once again for joining us today and for those listening, please do remember to rate this episode 5 stars and do follow our show. And if you’re interested in taking this further get in touch with Bhairav via the email we will provide on our website.

Thanks for joining today. We were Rory, Bhairav, and Amit on MoneyTok. See you next time.