Entrepreneurs, Investors, Digital Nomads drawn to Portugal

We welcomed Shelley Wren, Head of Business Development at Sovereign Trust a global corporate, tax, and relocation advisory group, on our podcast, The Golden Quarter Show.

Sovereign has a presence in over 20 countries, they offer corporate, private client and retirement planning services and serve digital nomads, corporates, private investors, HNWIs and their families globally.

Key takeaways from our conversation with Ms. Wren were:

• What motivates Sovereign’s clients from exploring the tax and immigration solutions in Portugal
• What solutions Portugal offer budding entrepreneurs?
• Where demand is pouring in from for Portugal and why?
• The deep understanding Sovereign has of global citizens, digital nomads, and international expats.

Shelley Wren, Head of Business Development at Sovereign, has over thirty years of experience in investment advisory working with high-net-worth investors. Shelley works closely with Sovereign’s Wealth Management and Retirement Planning teams and can make recommendations according to clients’ needs and objectives to guide them through the complexities of acquiring an international investment property, of using trusts, foundations, funds, and companies worldwide, to structure, develop and maintain individuals’ assets for secure wealth succession planning. In addition, and working with the Sovereign Portugal team, Shelley can advise clients on their Non-Habitual Resident and Golden Visa applications to ensure maximum tax benefits for their clients.

A multi-disciplinary group helping expats invest and relocate to Portugal

Lorena Jimenez: Shelley, welcome to The Golden Quarter Show, it is a pleasure to have you on today. To give us a little bit of a brief introduction, perhaps you could start with what does Sovereign Group do. And specifically in Portugal, how could you assist HNWIs and entrepreneurs?

Shelley Wren: Good morning.

Yes, happy to do that, so the Sovereign business has been in Portugal for some 30 years.

Originally, our business was very much guiding and helping expatriates who were coming here to buy and invest in property, potentially retiring here, and looking after all their fiscal services, and tax matters.

As we have grown as a business, and as we have grown globally, we now operate in 26 countries, our main focus here is continuing those services, handling clients, and tax returns.

We are now a much bigger group and we offer services to support all aspects of doing business in Portugal, living in Portugal, residency, taking care of tax planning and cross-border advice, which essentially takes up a large part of what we do.

Many of our clients are moving here permanently so I would say we are a multi-disciplinary business and we offer services right across the financial remit. In Portugal, we have a full team of qualified accountants and investment support and our team here has in most cases been with the business for more than 10 years and many more than 20. So, we have a very deep experience level group of staff, all multilingual. 

Read more: Portugal Golden Visa, Taxes and Residency Alternatives

Providing private client advisory services

Lorena Jimenez: Specifically in terms of your wealth advisory services that you can provide private clients help with, where do you focus most of your service offering for this segment?

Shelley Wren: So, we have several different offerings in that segment when it comes to private client advisory, that is my role, and that is where we take the holistic approach of what our clients are looking to achieve when it comes to Portugal.

• Are they investing in property?
• Are they looking to actually live here?
• Are they looking to become dual residents, dual citizens, the golden visa programs, and the tax solutions that exist within the NHR tax regime?

The clients can work with us from every aspect of advisory on their wealth before becoming residents.

We have an asset management business as well, which is based out of our Gibraltar office, which is a full-service wealth management/asset management platform. A lot of our clients do work with that division to help them understand the asset management services that perhaps change once they become residents in the country here.

So, the service proposition is broad within each of the divisions of our business with many different solutions.

We are one of the largest privately owned trust businesses, we have a pensions division, corporate services provider, and many more types of services that clients look to when they are structuring a move to live in Portugal.

Lorena Jimenez: Generally, would you say where are they coming in from, where are your clients from?

Shelley Wren: That is a really good question, Lorena, over the last two years and working right through the pandemic with the restrictions that a lot of people had on movement, we have seen our demographic of clients coming from literally all over the world. As we operate in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Middle East Europe, we see a lot of clients coming in from those marketplaces in Asia, and the Middle East. But, more recently, a lot of our businesses come from the US.

Is the Portugal Golden Visa always the right route to Portuguese residency?

Lorena Jimenez: A lot of American clients are exploring the Golden Visa solution – do they wish to really come and live here? Or do they just want the option?

Shelley Wren: There is no real one demographic that I would go wow, that is specifically where we are getting most of our business from. By the nature of our distribution networks, we are seeing clients come from all over the world. And many years ago, Portugal was deemed to be one of those locations that the Blue Rinse Brigade came to live, you know, the retired sector, that is no longer the case.

We are seeing a massive human capital movement from professionals, young families coming in, setting up businesses, operating from here with their global businesses. That is where I see the demographic changing, Portugal is attracting a very much younger set of professional expertise into the country.

Read More: We are dealing with more and more US Clients – Sovereign – The Washington Times

Lorena Jimenez: I will come back to that point, but just a quick one in terms of your clients that are applying for Golden Visas, do you find that they are applying for it to have it as a as a backup plan? Or are they applying for it and then making the move over, whether it is from the US or Dubai, what is their motivation?

Shelley Wren: The Golden Visa satisfies a solution for those clients that are not ready to move now. So, it provides them with the flexibility of being in the country as often as they wish and entry to the country whenever they wish.

It does not mean they necessarily become residents here, one has the option to do so but most of our clients that are in that space are planning in advance and potentially saying – well, right now, we are not necessarily going to come and live there but that is something we will do in the future – then definitely the citizenship is appealing for some of the demographics.

If a client is going to come and live in Portugal, and that is not a decision that has been made, then the D7 visa which is a different type of product and service (is recommended).

This is where we work with our clients to bring them in, on the basis that the Golden Visa is not necessarily required because the D7 is a functional (way) of living here, and whether you want to work or be retired it offers you that flexibility.

Lorena Jimenez: So, the distinction if your client was opting between a D7 and a Golden Visa what would be the thought process that you would guide them through to make the choice?

Shelley Wren: The distinction is one a function of actually coming here to live permanently now and the other is the flexibility of not having to make that decision, but doing so at a later stage.