Trump Card “Math Doesn’t Add Up”: Investment Migration People in the News This Week

Investment migration people in the news this week included:

• Marcus Beveridge of Queen City Law
• Nuri Katz of Apex Capital Partners
• Dominic Volek, Sarah Nicklin, and Rohit Bhardwaj of Henley & Partners
• Cathy Qian of Hiways
• David Lesperance of Lesperance and Associates
• Armand Arton of Arton Capital
• Marc Acheson of Utmost Wealth Solutions
• Stuart Nash of Nash Kelly Global
• Gorvinder Pannu of Addleshaw Goddard Oman
• Aakarshan Kathuria of RiseUp

Bloomberg – Rich Americans Ready to Swoop In If New Zealand Relaxes Home-Buying Ban

Since New Zealand overhauled its golden visa program last month, there has been a surge of interest from would-be US investors, but the inability to buy a house in the country remains an obstacle, said Marcus Beveridge, managing director at Queen City Law in Auckland who specializes in foreign investment.

[…]

“A sensible way forward would be that anyone who successfully obtains a residence visa under the government golden visa scheme is eligible to buy a family home here,” Beveridge said. Telling investors they can’t buy a house “really sticks in the craw,” he said.

Forbes – Why Trump’s Gold Card Visa May Never Happen: ‘Math Does Not Add Up,’ Expert Says

“The challenges are daunting to be able to actually pull this off,” Nuri Katz, founder of Apex Capital Partners, who has a 34-year career providing investment immigration guidance to ultra-high-net-worth clients, told Forbes.

[…]

“The math does not add up,” Katz said. “In my 34 years of experience, I have rarely seen anybody spend more than 10% of their net worth on an immigration program, and generally it’s more like 5%. So you’ve got to be worth $100 million in order to be able to afford this.” The inconvenient truth for the Trump administration is there are fewer than 30,000 centimillionaires in the entire world, according to a report from Henley & Partners. Moreover, more than one third of the world’s centimillionaires are American. That leaves a potential market of roughly 20,000 foreign centimillionaires—roughly one tenth of what Lutnick said would be needed for the government to bring in $1 trillion. “The pool of global UHNWIs (ultra-high-net-worth individuals) able—and willing—to contribute USD $5 million outright is relatively small, especially when compared to residence by investment alternatives that are investment-based rather than donation-based,” Henley & Partners said in an email to Forbes. “It could potentially be an attractive program done correctly,” Katz said, “but it won’t be a million people, and it won’t be 200,000. Maybe reality is hitting them now, about whether or not there really is interest for this.”

[…]

“It looks to me like they’re backpedaling,” Katz said. “Now they have to make a decision of whether or not there really is the interest, because they are going to have to expand a lot of political capital in order to get this done.” Katz said ultra-wealthy investors will be skeptical before more details are known. “Doing a lot of fancy marketing and talking about it on TV is nice, but I believe the market understands that from the talk to reality to what the details of the law will actually be—the devil is in the details,” he said, adding he would caution clients not to register on the website until legislation is in place and more is known about how the collected information will be handled and protected. “There is no upside to registering right now,” he said. “We don’t know where that information is going to go and who’s going to use it. Will it be used only by the U.S. government? Could it maybe be sold to private businesses? It’s going to be a pretty powerful database of rich people.”

South China Morning Post – ‘It’s unsafe’: why Trump’s ‘gold card’ visa is failing to lure wealthy Chinese

Another major issue putting off Chinese billionaires from moving to America is the US’ policy of taxing citizens and permanent residents on their worldwide income, according to Cathy Qian, a lawyer at the Shanghai-headquartered law firm Hiways who runs the company’s private wealth management centre.

Business Insider – Why rich foreigners may not rush to buy Trump’s $5 million ‘gold card’ visas

Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners, an investment migration consultancy, said the scheme was unlikely to generate a rush of applications.

[…]

“Their estimations are just simply way off,” he told Business Insider. “As a general rule of thumb for wealthy people, they won’t spend more than 10% of their liquid net worth on a single discretionary purchase” — whether that’s a yacht, a watch, or the right to live in a country.

[…]

“Globally, there’s probably only 100,000 to 150,000 people who have that kind of net worth, and the majority are already in the US. And so that leaves you with less than 100,000 people as a potential market,” he said.

Newsweek – Why Dual Citizenship Is The New American Dream

David Lesperance, managing partner of Lesperance and Associates and a leading international tax and immigration adviser, told Newsweek that the uptick in U.S. nationals looking to get second citizenship originally started in 2016 when Donald Trump was elected over Hillary Clinton.

[…]

“Taxation, shootings, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, any of these drivers,” Lesperance added. “And well, what do you do? It’s called a wildfire for a reason. What if, despite your most earnest attempts, you can’t put out the wildfire? Your fire insurance would be an alternative residence or alternative citizenship.”

[…]

“So far in 2025, US citizens account for over 30 percent of all investment migration applications submitted through Henley & Partners—nearly double the combined total of the next five investor nationalities, which include Turkish, Indian, and British,” Sarah Nicklin of Henley & Partners told Newsweek.

[…]

“Our American clients come from a diverse pool of backgrounds. Affluent entrepreneurs, tech founders, and investors, for example, want the mobility benefits and security that a second passport provides,” Armand Arton, CEO of Arton Capital, told Newsweek.

FT Adviser – Govt considering special visas for wealthy foreign investors

David Lesperance, managing director at Lesperance & Associates, has been calling for the UK to bring in an immigration to replace the Tier One Investor visa route which was scrapped in 2022.

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“The pool of potential foreign Golden Geese who could be attracted to the UK can be expanded beyond Americans if a new investor pathway was paired with a new tax regime which incorporated the tiered proposals that have been proposed to replace the remittance tax basis,” he added.

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However, Marc Acheson, Global Wealth Specialist at Utmost Wealth Solutions, believed while an investor visa, in principle, sounded like a good idea, for it to be effective it needed to be supported by a globally competitive tax framework.

Econostrum – Trump’s $5 Million Gold Card Visa to Launch Online in Weeks, Says Commerce Secretary

David Lesperance, a tax attorney and immigration expert, told Newsweek that any attempt to alter tax obligations for cardholders would demand a revision of the Internal Revenue Code. 

[…]

“Not only is it impossible to make such a significant legislative change by Executive Order,” he said, “it is almost guaranteed that there will never be a sufficient number of votes in both houses to make such a change.”

Aviation A2Z – New Zealand’s Relaxed Golden Visa Rules Attract Wave of American Investors

Stuart Nash, former immigration minister and current advisor to global investors, identifies President Trump’s re-election as the primary catalyst for increased American applications.

[…]

Nash explains that many applicants hold different political perspectives from the current administration, prompting them to explore international options.

Gulf News – Oman’s Golden Visas are turning into a big hit with global investors

“Oman offers both a 10-year visa and 5-year residency (which is renewable) for investors,” said Gorvinder Pannu, Partner in Employment at Addleshaw Goddard Oman. “The ‘golden visa’ offers long-term residency for foreign investors – subject to fulfilling certain conditions.

[…]

“Yes, Oman is a growing but remains a niche freehold market,” said Aakarshan Kathuria, CEO of RiseUp.