BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PLAN: 2015 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Gibraltar Finance
“REPUTATION, REGULATION AND SPEED TO MARKET”
Published January 2015
1. Mission Statement Gibraltar Finance promotes Gibraltar as a quality and reputable financial services centre. We do this by proactively marketing the benefits of our proposition through the media, personal representation and corporate attendance at selected industry events. Gibraltar offers a well-regulated, transparent and internationally cooperative jurisdiction with access to financial markets including the right to access the EU single market in financial services. In partnership with the firms in the Gibraltar Finance sector, we have as our foundation three elements: the quality of our regulation, reputation and speed to market. Our proposition, offered in a modern environment, provides for competitive rates of personal and corporate tax, high quality infrastructure and a Mediterranean lifestyle that, combined, creates a compelling combination. The Gibraltar Finance team are judged on the delivery of tangible results. This, simply defined, is measured by increased revenue from traditional business lines and the creation of new revenue streams for the Gibraltar economy.
2. Objectives Gibraltar Finance exists to fulfil a number of specific purposes, these include: Increase significantly the global awareness of Gibraltar as a quality financial services centre, primarily in our chosen markets; specifically, people and institutions that materially influence the behaviour of target individuals and businesses. Increase revenue directly and indirectly for the private and public sectors in Gibraltar by attracting new or increased business across the full range of financial and support services that are provided from the jurisdiction.
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Gibraltar’s share of the UK motor insurance market grew from approximately 10% in 2011 to approximately 16% in 2013. There was considerable growth by a number of existing insurers together and a number of new insurers were licensed over this period.
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3. Review 2014 3.1 Insurance
A concerted effort has been made since mid-2013 to resolve the inability for an insurance portfolio transfer (Part VII) to take place from the UK to Gibraltar. In July 2014, HM Treasury agreed that Part VII transfers could take place under existing UK legislation. The run-off/legacy industry in the UK has asked for greater clarification on the mechanism of such transfers and Government is currently in negotiations with HM Treasury to provide that clarity. The opportunity for Part VII transfers to take place from the UK has generated significant interest. Gibraltar’s ambition to establish itself as an insurance linked securities (ILS) jurisdiction within the European Union made good progress in 2014. A working group with representatives from some of the largest global ILS participants provided valuable industry expertise and input to the FSC whilst the FSC was developing its ILS Guidelines. The ILS Guidelines were published in September 2014 and have been well received by the ILS community. Horseshoe Group, a large ILS insurance manager with offices in Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Ireland and assets under administration of $8 billion, was licensed as a new insurance manager by the FSC in October 2014. QNUPS legislation was passed to allow the pensions sector to offer a new Gibraltar product. Gibraltar Finance attended the following conferences in 2014. Captive Live - January in London SIFMA IRLS - March in New York City, USA BIBA - May in Manchester Bermuda Captive Conference – June in Bermuda AIRMIC - June in Birmingham Insurance Conference of Southern Africa – July in Sun City, South Africa Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous – September in Monte Carlo European Captive Forum – November in Luxembourg
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ABI Motor Conference – December in London
3.2
Funds
Meetings were held in London with fund lawyers, hedge fund consultants, accountants, prime brokers, asset managers and PR firms. There is a varying degree of knowledge of Gibraltar among professionals but it gave us the opportunity to explain about Gibraltar’s status within the EU and the benefits of using Gibraltar as a jurisdiction for setting up a fund or asset management company. We have gained traction with raising our profile and obtained good feedback from a number of the professionals visited. We attended various conferences at which we also exhibited and presented, or took part in a panel discussion, in some of them. These included Invest’13, Geneva; Bloomberg Hedge Fund Startup, London; FONDS’14, Zurich; EuroHedge, Paris; Hedge Fund Startup Forum, London; GAIM, Monaco; Hedge Funds World Asia, Hong Kong; Invest’14, Geneva; Hedge Fund Startup Forum, Zurich. A very successful event for Swiss Asset Mangers was held on Sunborn, in April, with very positive feedback from Swiss participants and local industry sponsors. We plan to hold a similar event in 2015. The first ever Funds and Asset Managers lunch was held at the RAC in London in October with approximately 170 attendees and was described by the chairman of GFIA as “brilliant” and it “hit the mark”. At the request of the industry and with participation by the FSC, GFIA Technical Committee and others, the Financial Services (Alternative Investment Fund Managers) Regulations were amended in order to allow for a National Private Placement Regime. During the year, articles and adverts were published in HFM Week and Hedge Fund Review, which are key publications for the hedge fund industry. We organised a roundtable in September hosted by Opalesque. Participants included members of the local industry, the FSC and Gibraltar Finance. The text, in pdf, of the roundtable was distributed globally by Opalesque which is read by 50,000 readers in 170 countries.
The Private Client space remains challenging but work has continued in sourcing effective solutions to the issues that we face. The outlook remains positive as the Gibraltar proposition modernises and rises to an ever changing future.
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Private Clients Page
3.3
General awareness of the Gibraltar proposition remains short of where it needs to be. In order to remedy this we have undertaken specific activity. During the course of the period of review face to face contact, perceived as the most effective method of getting our message across, has taken place with in excess of 60 relevant professional firms. The geographical reach has resulted in visits to traditional markets, London and Geneva, and this will continue. In addition we have undertaken visits to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We have also met with Newcastle and Bristol based professionals in London as a prelude to forthcoming visits to these cities. This trend is set to continue and expand to other cities. New business has accrued and completed in Gibraltar as a result of this activity. Attendance at international events is a cornerstone of our business plan. During the period in question we have attended numerous conferences, either as a delegate or via a sponsorship agreement. The areas that we have particularly covered include Family Offices, UK Resident Non Domiciles, Payments, EMoney, Trust & Company Management and Private Wealth Management. Our presentations are generally published after the event via the conference organisers and our social media sites. We have also attended a number of “in house” conferences hosted by professional firms in London. We are presently dealing with two expressions of interest of business to headquarter in Gibraltar. Where there are opportunities to support the activity of other senior executives these have been taken. Most recently our funds colleague was invited to join a European Family Office Event given that the profile of the audience included senior investment strategy decision makers within the FO’s themselves ie CIO’s, CFO’s etc. This will continue to be developed to drive greater value from the cost of attending the events and provide greater opportunity in the follow up meetings that take place. Feedback on the presentations delivered has generally been positive for example “concise, precise, lively – as is our jurisdiction” “very good and certainly woke the audience”
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Obtaining media exposure is also an integral part of our role and will be developed further. HM GoG has contracted with a UK PR firm who are actively
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“informative, relevant and funny at times – well done.”
delivering opportunities in this regard. We have created articles that have been published in the following journals, IFC Review, IFC Economic Report, Paybefore, Campden Wealth, Clarion and Spears. Our preferred style remains the Q&A style. We continue to regularly contribute to surveys primarily the Global Finance Centres Index (GFCI), and encourage industry to participate. This has seen an improvement in our ranking, of note is achieving second place in the “Best Offshore Centre� category in 2014. HM GoG has set up a working group of industry professionals that is conducting a root and branch review of the existing tax residency schemes and this is moving forward at pace. A second group has been formed and is investigating the virtual currency space. An initial report to Minister Isola has been drafted and this will shortly be submitted for consideration. At this stage no decisions have been taken and it is likely that consultation with Gibraltar based professionals will take place in the near future. We will shortly be publishing draft legislation which we, in conjunction with the private sector (STEP), have worked on over the past 18 months. We also take our involvement in the wider community seriously and have participated in the Young Enterprise Scheme and sit on the HM GoG Climate Change Committee representing the financial services community. The focus in 2015 will be to drive more activity and spend more time in face to face discussion with key business influencers. We will retain the Gibraltar House base for London activity and continue the push into the chosen regions in the UK.
4. Geographical We will continue to undertake visits outside of our core markets where we believe there is value and it is cost effective to initiate or grow a relationship. In 2014 very successful visits were undertaken to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Bermuda, New York, Johannesburg and Hong Kong. We are keen to continue to support industry initiatives and welcome approaches in this regard on perceived opportunities.
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Gibraltar Finance has committed to attend a number of events for 2015 building on the opportunities that they provide and based on the representations made by the private sector as to the key events in each of the dedicated fields. A number of new events were attended during 2014 and these in the main have proved
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5. Event Marketing
fruitful. The forward looking schedule (which is subject to change/confirmation) is set out below segmented by business area. We would encourage you to discuss your attendance with the appropriate senior executive as industry support is important and valued. Updates are communicated via the Finance Centre Council, press releases and social media.
5.1
Insurance
ILS CONFERENCE & ROUNDTABLE
20–21 January 2015
Hampshire
22-23 January 2015
London
03–04 March 2015
New York
13–14 May 2015
Manchester
08–10 June 2015
Bermuda
15–17 June 2015
Liverpool
Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring CAPTIVE LIVE UK Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting IRLS 2015 – Insurance & Risk-Linked Securities Conference Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring BIBA 2015 Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting BERMUDA – CAPTIVE CONFERENCE Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting AIRMIC CONFERENCE 2015 Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting THE INSURANCE CONFERENCE OF 26–29 July 2015 SOUTHERN AFRICA 2015
Sun City, South Africa
Gibraltar Finance will be attending FERMA 2015 Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting
12-17 September 2015
Monte Carlo
4–7 October 2015
Venice
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MONTE CARLO RENDE-VOUS
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Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting
ABI CONFERENCE 2015
December 2015
London
Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting
5.2
Funds
AIMA in ASIA 2015 (tbc)
22 January 2015
Hong Kong
4-5 February 2015
Zurich
26 March 2015
New York
Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting FINANZ’15 Zurich Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting HEDGE FUND STARTUP FORUM Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting FUNDS event)
CONFERENCE
(Informa 21–22 April 2015
EUROHEDGE SUMMIT 2015
Gibraltar
28–29 April 2015
Paris
6 May 2015
London
SWISS ASSET MANAGERS CONFERENCE by VOXIA
11-12 June 2015
Gibraltar
GAIM 2015
22–24 June 2015
Monaco
8 July 2015
Hong Kong
30 September to 1 October 2015
Geneva
Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting HEDGE FUND STARTUP FORUM Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring
Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting HEDGE FUND STARTUP FORUM
Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring
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INVEST ‘15
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Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring
FUND & ASSET MANAGERS LUNCH
13 October 2015
London
21 October 2015
Zurich
Gibraltar Finance will be hosting HEDGE FUND STARTUP FORUM Gibraltar Finance will be exhibiting
5.3
Private Clients
Family Wealth Management & Structuring Conference
21–22 April 2015
London
11-12 June 2015
London
Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring PayExpo 2014 Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring European Family Office & Private Wealth June 2015 Management Forum 2015 (TBC)
Geneva
Gibraltar Finance may be attending Asia Pacific Family Office Conference October 2015 (TBC)
Hong Kong
Gibraltar Finance may be sponsoring The European Family Office Conference
5-6 November 2015
London
Gibraltar Finance will be sponsoring UHNWI & Family Office Forum 2015 November 2015 (TBC)
Zurich
Gibraltar Finance will be attending Resident Non Dom Conference
November 2015
London
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Gibraltar Finance will be attending
6. Flagship Events During 2014 we hosted events building on the successful and established “Gibraltar Day in London� formula. It is our intention to continue with these. In 2015 we expect to host Flagship Events in the jurisdictions set out below. They have very clear business development goals and are targeted at increasing awareness in each of the jurisdictions. Each event provides an excellent opportunity to cement existing partnerships and create new relationships with key business influencers. There will be international media coverage in the run up to and after each event. We are grateful to Gibraltar firms for their support in attending these events and encourage even greater participation. The events, other than London, are generally timed to coincide with major international conferences at each of the venues and will have direct Ministerial support. Gibraltar Day in Zurich
03 February 2015
Zurich
Gibraltar Day in Bermuda
June 2015
Bermuda
Gibraltar Day in Hong Kong
July 2015
Hong Kong
Gibraltar Day in Geneva
September 2015
Geneva
Gibraltar Day in London
12 October 2015
London
7. Direct Marketing Each of the senior executives is tasked with specific business responsibilities. They work individually within the team making best use of their knowledge, contacts and available assets.
Philip is the Senior Executive for Funds and Asset Management, and his objective is to raise awareness of Gibraltar as the EU finance centre of choice for funds and asset management firms among decision makers and professional advisers. The transposition of the AIFMD in Gibraltar and the advantages for hedge funds and hedge fund managers will continue to be promoted. The focus of the marketing effort will be on London and Switzerland with further visits to Hong Kong also planned.
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Philip Canessa.
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7.1
In London, the objective will be achieved by continuing our focused meetings and presentations with funds’ lawyers, consultants, prime brokers, accountants, advisers and individual asset managers. Visits to Switzerland will include meetings with independent asset managers and lawyers to complement the Swiss asset mangers’ event in Gibraltar and the flagship events we will host in Zurich and Geneva. Meetings and visits arranged by members of the local industry to our target markets will be supported by the Senior Executive as requested. Attendance at industry events, in conjunction with GFIA, will continue and we will support events which GFIA wish to attend.
7.2
Michael Ashton
Mike is the senior executive that promotes the insurance and pensions sectors. To continue to raise the profile of Gibraltar as an insurance jurisdiction and to support new insurance company applicants considering Gibraltar. To finalise discussions with HM Treasury in respect of Part VII transfers from the UK to Gibraltar and to continue to promote Gibraltar as a new legacy jurisdiction within the EU benefiting from well-developed and established protected cell company legislation. To continue to promote Gibraltar as a new ILS jurisdiction within the European Union. Greater interest in onshore ILS jurisdictions is expected ahead of the implementation of Solvency II on 1 January 2016. To work with the ILS industry so that Gibraltar’s initial ILS transactions are completed during 2015. To work with the FSC and GAPFA to complete the enhancements and changes to Gibraltar’s pensions legislation during 2015 that will allow further innovation and products so that Gibraltar can achieve its goal of becoming an international pensions centre over the next few years.
Paul manages the private client proposition which focuses on a number of areas including residence schemes, corporate and trust work, banking and e-money institutions.
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Paul Astengo
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7.3
Work continues on growing existing and developing new areas of business. Target areas for the development of new business lines include philanthropy and the family office, e-money, payments and prepaid cards and potentially elements of the virtual currency space. Finalisation of the long awaited private client legislation is on track for delivery in quarter 1 2015. “Final” drafts have been created for all bar one piece and these are being reviewed. A group meeting will be convened in early January with those that have contributed to the drafting process so as to iron out any final issues that may arise. An up to date status is set out below. Legislation Financial services specific. Delivered in 2014 Capital Requirement Directive
Customer Safeguard Account
Perpetuity Period (amendment)
Pensions, QNUPS legislation
Due for delivery in 2015 Anti Forced Heirship
Private Trust Companies
Purpose Trusts
Foundations
Other Pensions – regulatory changes Recently enacted Companies Act
Insolvency Act
Limited Liability Partnership
With the departure of Victor Galliano in December 2014 we are considering, with the benefit of having had a permanent representative in London these past 18 months, how our representation in London will be most effective, In the interim, each of our senior executives will be spending more time in London and Mike Ashton in particular will be spending most of his time here, where his key markets in Insurance are based.
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London presence
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7.4
Gibraltar House in London will continue to be available to our sector to house and host events driven by professional firms and will be the base for our work in the United Kingdom.
8. Media Marketing Creating and maintaining awareness (marketing activity) continues to be a key objective. Our social media presence has as its hub an established web site (over 15,000 visits and over 45,000 page views) that we will continue to develop. Allied to this we continue to harness the low cost potential of the evolving social media space. Our online audience is now in excess of 3,600 individuals spread across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Plus. We are members of some 48 LinkedIn discussion groups to which we have posted in excess of 400 times in the last quarter. The audience is represented by a combination of local practitioners and a significant percentage of international readers. We have tweeted 1,432 times, received over 12,000 page views on Google Plus and had over 25,000 unique views of our Facebook content. Our “library” in ISSUU.com now hosts approximately 80 publications that have been read in excess of 4,300 times over the last 6 months. Our internet direct mail provider hosts 2,600 current emails and our office based data base holds details of approximately 3,800 names.
9. Products & Services We will continue to work closely with the private sector, focusing our efforts on providing both the legislative and consultative support in order to continue to develop new and improved products.
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2014 has seen notable success in this field including the recent publication of the Phase 2 Peer Review Report on Gibraltar on 29 October 2014 by the OECD Global Forum on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes,; rating the jurisdiction as ‘largely compliant’ overall as regards the implementation of the exchange of tax information standard in practice. We will continue to ensure that Gibraltar remains compliant with international standards of transparency and exchange of information. In doing so we understand that we establish a vital platform to our marketing activity.
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10. International tax compliance
We have received confirmation that Estonia and Canada have removed us from what are commonly termed ’tax-haven blacklists’ and continue to actively lobby those few remaining countries that still have Gibraltar on their official or unofficial ‘blacklists’. In addition to negotiating and concluding new international agreements at the macro level, Gibraltar Finance continues to handle the day-today exchange of tax information upon request from TIEA-partner countries.”
11. Conclusion
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The Gibraltar Finance team is committed to the continued development of Gibraltar as a quality and reputable financial services centre. We understand that in order to maximise the benefits of this challenge, we need to work in partnership with industry and embrace the tremendous opportunity that this brings. Please continue to engage with us and work in the further development of Gibraltar as a jurisdiction of choice.