Spanish-Speaking World the “Last Frontier” For Investment Migration: 10 On The Weekend With Adriano Vieira

10 On The Weekend is a weekly (-ish) feature in IMI, the concept of which is simple: Each time, we ask the same ten questions of a different IMI Pro, letting readers get to know the interviewee on a more personal and informal level than they might during the ordinary course of business.

Our guest this week is Adriano Vieira, A Lawyer at AIM Global.

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How do you spend your weekends?

We have been consistently busy, even during weekends. In addition to servicing clients from all time zones, we also have clients from locations where the Western weekend is a typical working day. Honestly, the many changes last year in the immigration sector took the amount of work to an incredible level.

When I finally have the opportunity to rest at the weekend, I spend it with my family. A great perk of living in Europe, which also serves our customers, is that it’s easy to travel to other countries in one or two hours and return on Sunday at a low cost.

What are your top three business goals this year?

We are developing and expanding products in new countries simultaneously. Our primary focus is on Spanish-speaking Latin America and the United States (home to the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking population). Perhaps this is the last frontier market for investment migration, and we have had great results.

Pressed to mention three primary goals, I would say:

• With the changes to the Golden Visa in Portugal, we aim to expand our operations further in Spain, especially within the Golden Visa segment. The LatAm countries have, without a doubt, the shortest route to European nationality; it only takes two years, and there is no need for language tests or giving up one’s original nationality.

• Many people from different countries can be Portuguese or Spanish without knowing it through a unique route: Sephardic ancestry. While it’s become more difficult to qualify under this path in the last few years, it remains a viable path to citizenship for many. Again, Spain comes into focus because, even though the government has extinguished the exclusive route, it continues to be active through other means. In Portugal, everything indicates that it will continue. This is a niche of the market we are working on expanding into.

• While we have increasingly grown our international presence worldwide, our objective is to remain the reference for RCBI in Latin America and its surroundings.

What’s your biggest business concern right now?

My biggest business concern will always be the political issue of immigration’s impact on societies and their perceptions of it. Although RCBI is by far the safest form of immigration from the point of view of the origin of funds and public security, it is usually negatively portrayed in the media, highlighting cases of irregular activities or dire repercussions for locals, especially living costs.

All of us who work in this market should be more proactive in highlighting the benefits of this type of residence, especially in public discourse.

Which book is on your nightstand right now?

I am reading various books on Spanish law, immigration, nationality, taxation, and investment management. I am repeating everything I did when expanding into Portugal, but this time, I am doing it with Spain.

How and when did you first get into the investment migration industry?

I would say that I entered the industry once I came to Portugal. This is because, around 2016, we had the idea of moving to Portugal and expanding the Brazilian real estate activity for which I worked as a lawyer to Portugal.

The experience of establishing the company and applying for an entrepreneur visa, along with the shock of constant delays and surprises from the entities that deal with the process, served as a learning experience for me.

I had an excellent lawyer, Dr. Inês Azevedo, handling the process. I am grateful for her services to my family. This served as an introduction to best practices in the sector. In everything I did, I sought to understand all the legal aspects as if I had returned to law school.

With this in mind, I registered with the Portuguese Bar Association. However, I knew this privilege was an opportunity, not a guarantee. So, I looked for postgraduate courses in the best Portuguese schools for investment. I studied one focusing on real estate and another on investment funds and banking law – everything related to a lawyer in the investment immigration segment.

In 2019, I did specific academic work for venture capital funds and their application to the Golden Visa, a modality that was previously largely neglected compared to real estate. However, this would eventually become the main route under Portugal’s Golden Visa.

In the professional segment, I worked in companies related to investment and immigration, especially related to highly qualified professionals, entrepreneurs, retirees, passive income earners, and Golden Visa investors. I had the opportunity to work at Mercan Properties, one of the most significant actors in the industry. In addition to learning, I was lucky enough to make great friends, whom I still keep today.

I have been working with Matias Apparcel at AIM Global for two years, working hard and constantly developing markets and products without ever failing to take care of the daily monitoring of clients and their processes.

What was your proudest moment as a service provider?

What gives me the most pride is being able to do something to alleviate customers’ anxiety, especially when it comes to the constant delays in the process. Whenever we manage to make the processing flow smoothly, to the extent that we can influence it, I see it as a victory in this field of unexpected changes.

In this respect, I had a unique and extraordinary experience of a kind that occurs once in a lifetime:

During the pandemic, the government suspended in-person appointments for collecting biometric data. Without that process, clients could not move forward and obtain their residency. Because these appointments could re-open at any time, we created an emergency system with IT, controls, alarms, and schedules so as not to miss the opportunity to be the first to reach our clients and their families when an appointment opened up. It required highly complex coordination that involved different variables, such as availability, locations, number of people, and priority criteria, with computers and human resources.

When the vacancies returned, we had massive success. I would say that we often got all the appointments. Even when the government opened the appointments in the early morning or late evening, we got the lion’s share because our system alerted us in real time. 

The procedure is different now, but I believe the team that worked on this system will never forget the “fever” we felt.

What I can say about this journey is that we must always be creative and fearless in this sector because the challenges are unending.

Which investment migration market development has surprised you the most in the last year?

The most surprising market has been Latin America.

These are typically countries where wealth and European descent coincide. Therefore, LatAm HNWIs tend to have European citizenship or the possibility of obtaining it through descent processes.

Nevertheless, we have seen strong demand for RCBI programs. The most surprisingly welcomed product is the digital nomad or HQA Visa.

Maybe the NHR ending will harm the digital nomad visa and the HQA program in the future, but, on the other hand, Spain has become very attractive with Beckham Law.

If you could go ten years back in time, what business decision would you change?

Lawyers are typically taught and raised for the court process. Initially, I dedicated most of my time to this, in parallel with developing my more consultative activity.

I do not enjoy this “classic” activity, even though it is sometimes necessary, especially concerning nationality cases. Still, ten years ago, I should have focused exclusively on what I do today. 

What investment migration industry personality do you most admire?

There are many. I am lucky to be in an industry where I constantly admire many talented and brilliant people.

To this end, I want to name two instead of one:

1) Jordi Vilanova is an example of someone from a generation more senior than mine. I admire him specifically for his exceptional management skills and kindness.

2) I also admire Matias Apparcel, from my own generation, for his brilliance and genius in developing markets and products.

If all goes according to plan, what will you be doing five years from now?

I enjoy what I do. I hope to be performing precisely the same activities in five years.

What seems evident to me is that in five years, procedures will increasingly become more robotic and programmable.

My objective is to actively develop this technical aspect of IT within the RCBI sector while maintaining human and face-to-face customer service with excellence. I doubt that machines will be able to replace humans in this area. 

Adriano can help with the following migration programs: