Guernsey Promotes Finance Centre In India

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

15 December 2011

Guernsey businesses and a delegation from the Guernsey government recently met with practitioners from India’s financial services industry and promoted the island at a number of events, including the Asia Venture Capital Journal conference, where attendees were told of Guernsey’s strength as a leading domicile of choice for private equity funds.

Leading the government delegation, Peter Niven, Chief Executive of Guernsey Finance, the promotional agency for the island’s financial services industry, was joined by Jonathon Hooley, a senior partner of KPMG, Channel Islands, the Managing Director of the Legis Group, Stuart Platt-Ransom, and Legis’s Director of Trust and Corporate services, John Morris.

Whilst in India the team attended the International Taxation conference in Mumbai, India, where Hooley gave a presentation on the benefits for resident Indians and non-resident Indians of utilizing Guernsey structures for both corporate and private wealth management.

Commenting on the latest visit, Niven said: “Each time we visit India there is increasing awareness of Guernsey as a leading international finance centre. Indeed, this is illustrated by the fact that during the last 18 months Guernsey has been the domicile of choice for Indian-related entities, particularly funds, which are listing on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM). This has not gone unnoticed and now we need to make sure that we continue to disseminate these sorts of messages to the Indian introducer market so that we can build up these business flows in the coming years.”

He added: “Our plan is to continue pushing messages to the key decision makers in Delhi and Mumbai through Guernsey Finance attendance at conferences and events and being supported by the industry practitioners making their own visits to India. Certainly, it is important that we maintain a strong presence in this growing and increasingly important centre at a time when business flows from markets closer to home are under pressure.”

Guernsey’s first official delegation to India, led by Carla McNulty Bauer, Minister for the Commerce and Employment Department, visited Delhi and Mumbai in October 2010. Subsequently, Guernsey Finance has returned to promote the island’s finance industry by attending conferences and events in Mumbai.

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