Jersey firms win major Canadian venture capitalist work

Thursday 18 June 2015

Two Jersey companies are key players in a consortium that has won a prestigious contract to vet wealthy applicants seeking ultimately to attain Canadian citizenship.

Global citizenship experts, Henley & Partners, are working alongside international business risk specialists Comsure Government Services (Comsure) as part of a consortium led by BDO, the world’s fifth largest accountancy and advisory network.

The local firms have won an important contract to provide vetting and due diligence services for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). They will conduct financial checks on selected applicants from around the globe looking to gain permanent residence, the stepping stone to Canadian citizenship, under a pilot programme being run by CIC.

The new Immigrant Investor Venture Capital (IIVC) programme is designed to attract venture capitalists wanting to relocate to Canada. It is vital to its success that only highly credible and reputable applicants are cleared to be considered for permanent residence.

Under the consortium, BDO, Henley & Partners, and Comsure will work together to carry out due diligence procedures on selected applicants.

To win the bid, the three firms were able to demonstrate to the Canadian government-sponsored agency, a range of specialist industry knowledge and technical expertise. And as a result, CIC will receive the most comprehensive due diligence reporting available anywhere in the world.

Jersey-based Comsure was able to tailor its specialist iTrackRisk^TM software for the residence and citizenship-by-investment market as a result of advisory input by Henley & Partners. The tool captures data and documentation to evaluate an overall risk profile of an applicant.

“The software not only acts as an applicant on-boarding tool that captures their profile data and documentation, but it also assesses each applicant dynamically over a number of risk attributes and in-doing so objectively ascertains a quantitative compliance risk score. Furthermore, it has the capability to be used in conjunction with trade sanction data (e.g. UN, EU and OFAC) as well as publically sourced risk data as provided by such firms as World-Check” explains Mathew Beale, founder of Comsure.

Henley & Partners, which has its head office in Hope Street in St Helier, was responsible for bringing the consortium together.

Henley & Partner’s Chief Executive Officer, Eric G Major, said they were very proud to be part of the winning bid.

“By combining the strengths of these three leading companies, we have created a due diligence solution that is world class and incomparable. The Immigrant Investor Venture Capital programme will benefit from state-of-the-art technology, sophisticated due diligence processes and expert knowledge relevant to such programmes”, he said.

Mr Major said that any immigrant programme based on investment is only as reputable as the last investor to gain entry. “Therefore, effective vetting of applicants is the most important element in creating a successful and sustainable programme”, he said.