TCI: Savory favors investor residency status, heralds KPMG economic report, says Caicos link is economic lifeline

#Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, Monday May 21, 2018 – A report by #KPMG is expected to expose exactly what the Turks and Caicos needs to hear about its economy and its economic potential in the Financial Services thanks to a state of the industry assessment which will be completed in a matter of weeks. 

 The subject and advent of the economic report was touted in the third annual #BordierBank(TCI) Investment Conference held May 16-18 2018 at Beaches Resort Villages and Spa in Providenciales.  

 Peter Savory, director of Chartered Trust and Savory & Associates, both in the Turks and Caicos Islands, was among the opening ceremony speakers and said the Turks and Caicos is certainly in a period of transition.

 Mr. Savory cited the shift in the financial services is evidenced in, among other things, the arduous re-registering of every company in the islands in time for an October deadline due to new requirements of a re-booted Companies Ordinance; updated for the first time in 37 years, he said.

But Mr. Savory, in his remarks, largely focused on how to make investing more attractive to multi-millionaires who are dawdling on the fence, instead of taking the plunge.

“…what I think it is going to contain, and if I am right, it is going to say that TCI has very good potential in the area of private trust companies and there is a very interesting aspect I suppose or  feature in there for Trusts to own company shares that I think will have good potential…” Savory whose LinkedIn profile says he is a financial graduate of the University of Auckland added, I believe we have a great future in attracting high net worth individuals here in the Turks and Caicos Islands.”  

Peter Savory believes the Turks and Caicos would be on the winning side if it were to establish a quota of how many investors could attain legal residency, which would or could be tied to the type and value of investment these qualifiers would be prepared to make.

 “I have been told that the Cayman Islands has a quota for residency certificates that they have never met.  Now is it because there is more due diligence, that it is extremely robust or is it that they have just not been successful enough in marketing their residency program.  Whatever the reason, there are great parallels to draw with places like the Cayman Islands…”

Savory said while he is not suggesting citizenship for the wealthy investors, he believes it may help the sector if there was more structure and a plan to sweeten the pot for inward investment to bolster the country’s number two industry.

I think our future lies in trying to attract people where they have the capacity to invest good amounts of money…” Peter Savory explained that he is already having referrals of people who are in the Turks and Caicos, average people who have been extremely successful and who are willing to pump millions into the economy via the financial services if they were given some sort of investor status; he continued, “and it is certainly something that I am actively lobbying the government on.”

Mr. Savory talked about alternative investment and touted an infrastructural addition to link the Caicos Islands.

 “Imagine a road bridge, a bridge connecting the island of Providenciales and #NorthCaicos and how that might change the economic face of the Turks and Caicos Islands if we were to open up North Caicos and #MiddleCaicos, which are joined by causeway an are potentially three times the size of Providenciales; Providenciales itself being twice the land there in Bermuda. Bermuda having a population of 60,000 people.”

Mr. Savory sees a bounty of potential in this infrastructural enhancement, which as been touted for decades but remains undone; an economic  and development dream unrealized.   

“And it could be made to tie in quite nicely with an investment product and with other things such as a permanent residency program to make it a viable alternative.”  

Kenrick Walters, Chief Risk Officer at Bordier Bank TCI, who has seen a draft of the document said of the KPMG report that, “I can’t get ahead of the Premier (who is also finance Minister) in saying what is in that report, but I can tell you that it addresses some of the major concerns that we have faced in the industry for a long time.  Immigration, business licenses, business processes in general; things like dispute resolutions at the courts, all of these issues and all of these areas will be addressed and the Premier has committed to looking at the industry from a holistic standpoint and working with the private sector, with regulators and so on to really change the game.”

The KPMG survey team arrives in the country this week.