Blue Chip Issue 79

OFFSHORE INVESTMENT
Guernsey continues
to deliver in times
of uncertainty
Grant McLeod, the new South Africa-based consultant for WE ARE GUERNSEY, highlights his experience of
dealing with Guernsey over the past 20 years and why the island still works for South African investors.
I
have been working in private wealth in South Africa for more
than 20 years. Much of that period has been turbulent in
financial markets in our country, but throughout, Guernsey
has played, and will continue to play, a key role in global
private wealth management for South African corporate and
private clients.
I am delighted to have teamed up with WE ARE GUERNSEY,
giving the promotional agency for Guernsey, in the Channel
Islands, a full-time presence in South Africa for the first time.
Guernsey has increasingly proved to be a particularly useful
jurisdiction for South Africans over those two decades and
I have had good experience of using the island for private wealth
structuring during my time with a number of global firms.
I started working in the financial services industry in South Africa
back in 1998. As an international portfolio manager, it was the time
of the Asian contagion emerging market crisis and the start of the
dot.com boom. Many institutional clients were persuaded to move
opportunities away from the value of the broader market.
I was managing multi-asset class global portfolios and investing
for clients in unit trusts, based in Guernsey, which were able to
weather volatility during these difficult times, largely due to
diversification and solid, global jurisdictional choices.
It was also a time when we had to navigate global markets
during the extreme volatility of the rand. Many South Africans
panicked and moved around internationally at the worst possible
time. Advisors really earned their stripes at this time, limiting their
24 www.bluechipdigital.co.za