Investment Migration People in The News This Week – Oct 7-14, 2019
In this weekly segment, we provide a roundup of industry personalities’ appearances in the traditional media over the past week.
Over the last seven days, the BBC, Bloomberg, SCMP, and the Bangkok Post have all run stories on residence and citizenship by investment.
People who made appearances this week: David Lesperance, Ron Klasko, John Hu, Christian Kälin, K. Eli Akhavan, Carolyn Lee, Kathryn von Matthiessen, Bernard Wolfsdorf, Jürg Steffen, Eli McGeever, Mark Butler, George Chmiel, Shih Wing-ching, and Bill Bani.
Bloomberg: For Anxious Hong Kong Elite, the U.S. Isn’t the Top Escape Route
As protests in Hong Kong intensified this summer, Los Angeles lawyer Bernard Wolfsdorf anticipated “a new wave of immigration” to the U.S. So he traveled to China and met with regional immigration advisers. They told him not to get excited.
IM people featured:
- Bernard Wolfsdorf, Wolfsdorf Immigration Law
- John Hu, John Hu Migration Consulting
- Ronald Klasko, Klasko Immigration Law Partners
- Carolyn Lee, Carolyn Lee LLC
- K. Eli Akhavan, CKR Law
- Kathryn von Matthiessen, Katten Muchin Rosenmann LLP
“Since June, I have seen a significant increase in demand from Hong Kong for Australian visas, with business visas being of great interest to those with the wealth to make it work,” said David Lesperance, an international citizenship and tax law expert and managing partner at Lesperance & Associates.
IM people featured:
- David Lesperance, Lesperance & Associates
- Eli McGeever, Soho
- Mark Butler, Property Consultants Australia
Business Times: Wealth of opportunities
Henley & Partners CEO Juerg Steffen’s work involves helping uber-rich clients find the ideal place to settle down, even change their passports. He tells what’s driving this class of migrants.
IM people featured:
- Jürg Steffen, Henley & Partners
Bangkok Post: Juwai pushes golden visa for Chinese
Amid slowing global economic growth, the baht’s appreciation and a weak yuan, a Thailand Elite residency golden visa scheme can help boost property sales among Chinese buyers, says Juwai.com, China’s biggest international property website.
IM people featured:
- George Chmiel, Juwai
BBC: How selling citizenship is now big business
A Vanuatu passport, MJ explains, is “so fast” to arrange (you can get one in just 30 days), and that helps make it a popular choice. But Mr Kalin and others caution that Vanuatu has a reputation for corruption. As a result, Henley & Partners and others do not deal with the Vanuatu citizenship programme.
IM people featured:
- Christian Kälin, Henley & Partners
- “MJ” of PRG Consulting (yes, that PRG)
- Bill Bani, Bani Law
SCMP: More than 40 per cent of Hongkongers want to emigrate amid ongoing protests, survey finds
More than 40 per cent of Hongkongers want to emigrate amid the ongoing social unrest, according to a recent survey by Chinese University, compared with around a third of respondents who gave the same answer in December last year.
IM people featured:
- Shih Wing-ching, Centaline Property
Christian Henrik Nesheim is the founder and editor of Investment Migration Insider, the #1 magazine – online or offline – for residency and citizenship by investment. He is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, documentary producer, and writer on the subject of investment migration, whose work is cited in the Economist, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, and Business Insider. Norwegian by birth, Christian has spent the last 16 years in the United States, China, Spain, and Portugal.