While many of us in the Northern hemisphere were winding down in December, WE ARE GUERNSEY’S South Africa Business Development Representative Grant McLeod was as busy as ever. In his latest blog, Grant provides an update on his activities in the run-up to Christmas…
Over the last few weeks of 2021 I’ve been focusing on what more I can do to promote Guernsey in the region, as well as the usual numerous business development meetings and introductions with Guernsey and off-island service providers and potential clients in South Africa.
In my opinion, the most effective way to do that is face to face, so it was great to be able to host two (socially-distance and masked) networking breakfasts in Cape Town and Johannesburg at the end of November. After all the Covid restrictions, it was a welcome change to be able to meet old friends and develop new connections somewhere that wasn’t behind a computer screen.
The event provided the opportunity to discuss the continued strengths of Guernsey as a jurisdiction of choice among South Africa institutions. Competing providers got the chance to highlight the benefits of Guernsey, and non-competing providers were able to share mutually beneficial opportunities. Now that we are into 2022 I look forward to hosting more of these event to share Guernsey’s story as the world hopefully gets closer to returning to normal.
In terms of producing more material, I have been working with my Guernsey colleagues in the agency’s Strategy & Technical team to produce comparison factsheets. This is part of the business development strategy for South Africa, which is now being implemented. These show, at-a-glance, the benefits that Guernsey’s specialist financial services industry provides versus other jurisdictions, in terms of the products available and regulations in place. This gives anyone who is interested in what Guernsey has to offer the best possible knowledge when selecting a jurisdiction with which to conduct business. These have been across the private wealth, funds, and pension sectors, with a range of different jurisdictions featured.
Another area where WE ARE GUERNSEY has really stepped up over the last year or so is producing podcasts, and I am pleased that our work in South Africa is now becoming part of this. So far we have produced two episodes of a new series entitled ‘South Africa Shorts’, looking at where Guernsey structures work for South African clients.
In the first, Cobus Kruger of Citadel discusses why Guernsey is so popular for South Africans in the investments funds and private wealth space, while the second features Adaliz Laverello and Chris Van Vliet of Cannon Asset Management. They discuss the merits of Guernsey for South Africans who are looking to externalise their wealth and how they can capitalise on the benefits of doing business in Guernsey. You can listen to these on our podcast page now.
We have some great ideas for more podcasts and hopefully videos too, so watch this space in 2022 for more.
