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SO YOU WANNA GO OFFSHORE?
CEO Reza Afshar gives you the deets on the what, where & why of corporate registration abroad… and then some
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ith the majority of SFM Offshore clients based in the UAE, Reza Afshar is well-positioned to tell you why you should or shouldn’t take your corporate registration abroad. Businesspeople in the GCC are both globally-minded and well-travelled, so really knowing the details inside and out is going to make or break any entrepreneur specializing in offshore registration. With access to some of the biggest multinational law firms, entrepreneurs in the UAE specifically (and in the GCC as a whole), can smell an amateur from the get-go. “From the beginning of SFM eight years ago, we always had a close relationship with clients in the GCC. It is a market we love because our clients in the GCC -more than anywhere else- are extremely business savvy, and therefore our task becomes much easier when we work with clients that have a very high level of industry knowledge,” says Afshar. Knowledge indeed, many ‘treps in the Gulf nations can rattle off the top 10 offshore locations from memory, making them a hard 72
Entrepreneur
MAY 2014
bunch to please when handing over their corporate registration. “Being the CEO of SFM I would naturally be biased in my opinion of our service levels, however our core principles are around service. We aren’t the cheapest in the market, but I am confident that we offer the best service. We provide our clients with a single account manager in their spoken languagecurrently speak over 10 languages between our account managers. Also, we have the majority of our functions online. When using multiple jurisdictions, we provide a single point of contact which is proven to save time and make the process of forming companies a simple, efficient process.” In terms of business hubs, Afshar says that other than Dubai there are more MENA locales to cultivate clients: “I think other cities such as Doha, Abu Dhabi, and even Beirut are very dynamic cities that are certainly interesting for us in terms of business development.” The CEO spends most of his time in Dubai, but travels often to their other global office locations. “My second city is Geneva where we still have about 20 staff.” Formerly based in Switzerland, both Afshar and the SFM Offshore shareholders felt that “moving the compa-
ny’s headquarters to Dubai was a major step for us, both personally and professionally. Switzerland is a country where everything is set like a cuckoo clock, which is ingrained in the business culture. So it was with some apprehension that I first moved to Dubai, but once here it was very apparent that this city is very business-oriented and facilitates the implementation of foreign companies to a level that sets a standard for itself- and that other cities should aspire to.” In hindsight, what does Reza think they could’ve done differently? “Looking at the rapid expansion and growing number of competitors, we should probably have started looking at India and China at the start of our business,
“MOVING THE COMPANY’S HEADQUARTERS TO DUBAI WAS A MAJOR STEP FOR US [...] SWITZERLAND IS A COUNTRY WHERE EVERYTHING IS SET LIKE A CUCKOO CLOCK, WHICH IS INGRAINED IN THE BUSINESS CULTURE.