PL Group opened its Zurich office in July, a new flagship for residence and citizenship by investment (RCBI), international real estate, private client services, and government advisory.
The operation will be led by Jacopo Zamboni, Managing Partner of PL Group, Zurich, who brings more than 15 years of experience in RCBI and private client services, advising high- and ultra-high-net-worth individuals across key markets including Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the UK, Luxembourg, Monaco, the USA, and Brazil.
Proximity to clients has shaped the Group’s expansion since its founding in Dubai; offices in Singapore, Lebanon, Egypt, Nigeria, Kuala Lumpur, and the Philippines all followed client demand; Zurich continues that pattern.
With the Group’s EU client base up 12% year on year, a permanent European presence had become both a strategic and an operational priority, and for a firm whose identity has long been tied to Swiss values of discretion, precision, continuity, and trust, the move is also a homecoming.
“Zurich isn’t just another office location for us,” says Jeffrey Henseler, Founder and Chairman of PL Group. “Inbound enquiries from Europe increased by 35% year on year, making it clear that the demand for a permanent presence was already there.”
The new office, he explains, “brings us closer to those clients and gives our advisors a well-connected base from which to serve families and work with business partners throughout Europe.”
Henseler also frames the opening as “a clear statement about the kind of company we are building. Families are no longer looking at mobility, real estate, and private client services in isolation. They want joined-up thinking, long-term planning, and counsel they can trust across generations.”
Why Zurich Matters
Zurich is one of the world’s leading centers for private banking, wealth management, family offices, insurance, legal advisory, and cross-border financial services. That ecosystem matters because decisions on residence, citizenship, real estate, and wealth are never made in isolation; they involve lawyers, trustees, bankers, tax advisers, and family office executives. A Zurich presence puts PL Group at the center of that conversation.
The location also suits the changing RCBI client. A decade ago, the sector was discussed mostly in terms of mobility; today, clients want to know how a residence permit affects their business operations, whether an overseas property can serve both lifestyle and strategic purposes, and how a second citizenship fits into succession planning, travel requirements, and family governance.
“Switzerland has always stood for stability, discretion, and quality of advice,” says Zamboni, who heads the new office. “That is exactly what today’s clients are looking for.”
Those clients, he notes, “do not want isolated products; they want perspective.”
The Zurich office, Zamboni adds, “has been established to bring together the different parts of the conversation: RCBI, international real estate, and private client services, in a way that is coherent, responsible, and aligned with the long-term interests of the family.”
What the Zurich Office Offers
The Zurich hub will operate across four core areas: RCBI, international real estate, private client services, and government advisory, offering an integrated approach for clients whose personal and business lives cross borders.
“Families are thinking differently about the future,” says Henseler. “They are asking how to protect their wealth, how to preserve mobility, how to give the next generation more choice, and how to remain prepared in a world that is becoming less predictable. Zurich gives us the right platform to serve those families with the seriousness and discretion they expect.”
Discretion is part of the offer. The biggest decisions in private wealth are often made quietly, and the adviser’s role is not to dramatize uncertainty but to help clients prepare for it.
The Rise of the European Plan B
Who those clients are has evolved over the past decade. Once associated mainly with emerging-market families seeking access to Europe, North America, or the Caribbean, investment migration is now considered by a far more global client base, and increasingly, that base includes Europeans themselves.
Europe remains the premier destination for families seeking stability, opportunity, and permanence, its appeal built on political maturity, legal certainty, quality of life, and deep capital markets. Yet even its most successful families have started asking where they might need the right to live tomorrow, aware that stability should not be assumed simply because it has existed in the past.
The drivers range from the economic (higher tax burdens, concerns about the sustainability of public finances) to the political (evolving rules on wealth, inheritance, and business ownership). For entrepreneurs, a second residence can support international expansion, travel, and market access.
For families, the considerations are more personal: education, healthcare, succession, asset protection, and the ability to relocate quickly if circumstances change.
This is not panic, and it rarely means leaving Europe; in most cases, it means adding options. A family with one residence, one passport, one banking system, and one real estate base carries concentration risk, while additional options protect children’s access to education, give businesses room to operate internationally, reduce dependence on any single jurisdiction, and preserve the freedom to choose.
The mindset has changed accordingly. The question is no longer “Which passport is strongest?” but “What structure gives my family the greatest protection over the next 10, 20, or 30 years?”
A Maturing Market
Within Europe, Portugal continues to attract attention for its long-term citizenship pathway, Greece for Schengen-area residence linked to real estate, and Cyprus for its permanent residence route and role as an Eastern Mediterranean base.
For many families, Caribbean citizenship programs are not competitors to these but complementary parts of a wider mobility plan, offering visa-free travel, family inclusion, and diversification beyond a single country.
Serving such plans requires a different model. The old approach was transactional: choose a program, submit an application, obtain a result. The new one is advisory-led: understand the family’s personal, business, tax, and succession objectives, then build a structure around them.
Nuance is where the value now sits. A residence program may look attractive on paper yet not suit a family’s tax profile, a citizenship program may offer mobility but demand care on banking and reputation, and a property may support a residence application yet still need to stand on commercial fundamentals; international real estate, once assessed on lifestyle or yield alone, is now weighed for residence rights, education planning, and capital preservation as well.
Tighter regulation and enhanced due diligence have professionalized the market, putting greater weight on reputation, compliance, and quality of advice. European clients in particular, who often already hold strong passports and established banking relationships, seek flexibility rather than escape, and they expect counsel that matches the complexity of their lives.
In an uncertain world, the most valuable asset may not be a passport, a residence permit, or a portfolio; it may be the ability to choose. For a growing number of Europe’s wealthy families, that choice is now being planned well in advance.
Interested in exploring your family’s options? Get in touch with PL Group.
