Henley & Partners taken as a Maltese government authority in the Chinese press
Published:
March 5, 2014 at 12:07am
In this piece, Henley & Partners is taken to be a Maltese government authority, and Henley’s Eric Major is openly promoting Malta’s sale of citizenship as a scheme to get into any EU country outside Malta, telling applicants that they don’t need to live in Malta and that any number of passports can be sold.
The approved bonds for the Eur150,000 stocks-shares-bonds requirement are issued by the Maltese government at 2-3% interest, this article says.
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http://finance.eastmoney.com/news/1351,20140224362623577.html
Maltese government bonds are issued at higher rates of interest than those quoted.
Maybe Henley and the Maltese government will be taking their pizzo on these too.
Hence the discrepancy.
Maybe they plan to impose an 80% Henley & Something Final Withholding Tax on those bond interests. You know, they can justify that easily: it’s in the national interest.
And government bonds mature eventually and will need to be paid back. Meantime the taxpayer will have to carry an ever-increasing government borrowing capital and interest burden as Henley & Partners flog ever increasing numbers of Malta passports while creaming off millions of Euro to their own benefit.
They don’t even have to wait for the bonds to mature. When the obligatory investment period is over the stock market will be flooded with these bonds, lowering their market value.
The Maltese bond market is a small domestic bond market and as such we could well to be crowded out by our new citizens once they start buying their mandatory holding of government stock.
In short, the one opening we have had for our savings to date will no longer be available to us or available at an inflated cost!
I don’t imagine Henley thought that one through, but then why should they, their commission will not be affected . The absolute end would be if they applied to become a licensed financial intermediary to cash in on this too! Wait for it.
My concern is the following: Malta government stocks are issued for limited amounts and small private investors usually manage to get allotted the whole amount they apply for although there were cases when, due to the limited offer, even small applications by “the public” were reduced.
Malta government stocks are a rare opportunity which permits small investors, many of them pensioners, to supplement their meager pensions by investing their savings in a relatively risk-free way. Are these super-rich now going to compete with small investors for their limited supply? If so, it seems to me a grave injustice.
Daphne,
In the last version of the legal notice, the government, or whomever wrote it ( I suspect it was Henley) added a very interesting word regarding the purchase of the shares or bonds that was NOT in the previous legal notice. Unfortunately nobody pays attention.
They added that investments can be made in a “special purpose vehicle” That was something that was not in the previous legal notice, but I expected this.
What this allows Henley to do is to create a fund of government bonds that they will manage and will receive the difference between what is paid by the government and what they are telling the Chinese that they will get paid.
I expected this to happen before the new legal notice, anyway, but they put in the special purpose vehicle just to make it clear that they can do what they want they wanted to do.
It is just another revenue stream that the government is creating for Henley and it’s partners, and not for the people of Malta.
I really do not understand how this PM is not embarrassed.
BTW, one more prediction, soon enough Henley will offer citizenship buyers NOT to put up the 150,000 Euros, but will arrange to lend the money to the buyers for a fee of about 50,000 Euros. Basically they will arrange bank financing against the bonds and will have the buyers pay 5 years of interest in advance, which is better than freezing 150,000 Euros for 5 years. Complicated but remember what I am saying, it will come up soon.
Mr. Katz, an interesting comment. I liked the point about ‘another revenue stream’.
And the point about ‘how this PM is not embarrassed’.
One must note, however, that streams can be diverted into welcoming shallows.
This is because Henley is nothing but a two-trick pony replicating the Canadian IIP – which they could not monopolize there and then, right, Nuri?
I wonder, Daphne, how you discover things like this. It just has to be you, good work.
Looks like Henley is way way ahead of even the government in this game! Afterall they formulated the rules to suit themselves.
In fact its rather like a fixed game of snakes and ladders. Henley goes up all the ladders and our committed government slides down the snakes.
Each time the dice is cast, its a six, and Henley just happens to falls on a bock which gives them a cookie which allows them to ‘Process an other application’. They roll the dice again and guess what, its another six which entitles them to ‘Collect commission’, and so on with sixes and ‘ Process Due Dilligence’ ‘ Collect Commission, ‘Sell property’ ‘Collect Commission’ ‘ Advise on Investment’, ‘Collect Commission’ .
Who is the one that is getting screwed in this game? Its painfully obvious is it not? What would be really interesting however is to know what going on under the table.