IM Yearbook 2020/21

Lagos, Nigeria
C-suite Insight
NAVIGATING A CHANGING
GLOBAL MOBILITY
Henley & Partners is one of the largest companies in the
investment migration industry. The IM Yearbook reached out to
the firm’s c-suite executives and country managers to find out
how they view developments in the firm’s most important markets
and what they think of the current state of the industry.
It is safe to say that most businesses didn’t
factor a global pandemic into their 2020
plans, budgets and predictions. Neither
did Henley & Partners. “No one could have
anticipated the tumult of 2020 owing to Covid-
19,” says Dr Juerg Steffen, the firm’s CEO.
While at the onset of the pandemic, the firm
experienced a slowdown from an operational Dr Juerg Steffen
perspective, Steffen is convinced that Henley
& Partners, along with the entire investment migration industry,
will emerge stronger from the Covid-19 crisis. “There has been a
steady increase in interest in our services over the last few years,
and we are looking forward to a record-breaking 2021,” he says.
Coronavirus Impact
The great lockdown, border closures and travel restrictions
have given scenario planning a whole new meaning. The
Covid-19 reality, Steffen explains, has affected clients who
were required but not able to travel to host countries to
proceed with their applications. This delayed applications
that were in process. “However, the various countries that run
investment migration programmes have been quick to adapt
to the current conditions, and we are now seeing smoother
application processes, greatly enhanced by technology.”
COO Stefan Kraus says Henley & Partners itself benefited
from pre-Covid-19 investment in digital platforms. “We have
invested considerable amounts of time, resources and effort
in developing digital solutions for both private clients and
governments, ranging from self-service application portals to
internal application management systems for governments.”
He is certain that many of the digital advances adopted
during the lockdown, such as digital application processing
and verifications, will become standard procedures.
Booming Business
Meanwhile, Covid-19 has greatly increased
demand for investment migration. “We saw
a 49% increase in demand for our services
between January and June 2020 compared to
the same period in 2019,” the CEO comments.
Stefan Kraus adds that demand has increased
once again at the beginning of Q3 2020. “In
August alone, we had double the number of Stefan Kraus
signed-up clients than in previous months.”
According to Kraus, the world’s wealthy today consider investment
migration as more than just a ‘nice to have’ but rather as a
safeguard against political strife, economic turmoil and, as a more
recent addition, healthcare crises, which all have the possibility of
endangering the wellbeing and future prospects of their families.
“We typically tend to see increased levels of activity
in countries and regions whenever there is turbulence or
political unrest,” says Steffen. He points to other volatile
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Investment Migration Yearbook 2O2O/2O21