by Fernando Ferreira
When you’re raising a Golden Visa Fund and connecting with the entities on the ground, be it Immigration Agencies, Golden Visa Brokers, Lawyers, or other Investors, you hear about all sorts of practices.
Some of these practices, such as real estate manipulation and overpricing, where some real estate agents allegedly inflated prices, with anecdotal stories of properties being sold for double their market value, were among the reasons contributing to the Government’s decision to remove real estate from the Golden Visa investment options. Therefore, when from time to time you hear about kickbacks and other practices reminiscent of those times, it makes one wonder if anything was learned.
Fast-forwarding to today, continuing to invest in real estate, regardless of the reasoning or disguise, in the current political and social climate, where Housing and Immigration are top concerns for most voters and all political parties, risks inviting populist proposals to end or severely cripple the program.
Another controversial issue is the use of Self-Directed Individual Retirement Accounts to make the Golden Visa investment. There are different views on this issue, but examining the elaborate ways these investments are being structured reveals a gray area at the very least. If the IRS decides it’s not a permissible investment, the consequences can be catastrophic for the investors involved. For the Golden Visa Program, it will be a blow to the trust that a critical market has in the ecosystem players, be it lawyers, tax experts, brokers, or funds.
A final comment on Open Funds that invest in publicly listed companies in the Lisbon Stock Exchange or in other foreign Stock Exchanges. For the Portuguese Government to keep the Golden Visa Program open and with enticing conditions, there needs to be a real and transformative impact on the Portuguese Economy.
As I’ve mentioned previously, the current political and social trends on Immigration are not favorable, and the Golden Visa Program is on the target list of many people. Please let us have a long-term view of the few instruments Portugal has to support the Venture Capital and Private Equity ecosystems. In the US, nearly 2/3 of the S&P 500 market cap comes from companies that at some point in time were backed by Venture Capital. Portugal desperately needs such a change in its economic fabric.
Wanna have a chat about this, feel free to contact me here: Contact us – Ventures.eu
