The hurdle is on the lower end, however it seems pretty on par for the non-real estate funds. I’ve seen others anywhere between 4-8% above hurdle with a 20-25% carry. I think as investors we’d like to see double digit hurddles, but that seems to be an opportunity cost for the golden visa.
Which fund did you choose and why? I’m leaning towards Greytech II because of its differentiated investment focus (particularly because it is not real estate), its hurdle rate of 8% pa, and acceptable carry of 25%. Management fee of 1% is higher than the 0.5% of some other funds but balanced by the hurdle/carry. Also, the lock in is longer at 8 years + 2 + 2 but that’s probably a more realistic time horizon to realize profits. What have you found out about the managers and their track record? Anything else about the fund that I should know about?
BlueCrow’s small size, and focus on real estate and land sort of turns me off that fund.
Thanks for the help.
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For those worried about the real estate market in Portugal, here is an article from The Portugal News
are there any open ended funds that would qualify for the GV?
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I noticed that the C2 Capital Partners link seems to be linked to an Australian Company by the same name but it isn’t the entity that is listed in the CMVM site
@Ravig80111 https://c2capital.pt/ is the group that is the Portuguese company. Seems to be a lot of duplicate funds and banks in Australia that have the same name as other entities in PT and US.
Important update!
Portugal finally passed and published the proposed changes to the GV program this week. Feel free to look up about Decree Law no. 14/2021 but I am attaching a link with some info I found below.
Summary:
- effective 1/1/2022 (no phase in period starting July 2021). This is a delay.
- details which areas can be invested in for RE option and minimum rises to 500k€ (removing the 280k/350k options)
- INCREASES QUALIFYING AMOUNT FOR INVESTMENT FUND INVESTMENT TO 500k€
Bottom line - make your investments in 2021!
EDIT: the minimums for RE investing seem to be unclear. Ask your advisor but it seems that maybe the 280k and 350k options are still possible in the interior and island areas. Various sources are saying different things.
Did anyone in this forum invest in the Nest Fund while it was still open? I have a friend interested in the Next Fund (a follow on fund by the same managers) and I am interested to get perspective on how the Nest fund is performing thus far. As I recall, Nest is heavily concentrated in high street retail.
FATCA compliant banks. I just found this on the IRS website . Figured it would be useful for those going the fund route
https://apps.irs.gov/app/fatcaFfiList/flu.jsf
Running the names through the search engine here at the ones that came up as FATCA compliant
Bison Bank
Novo Banco
Caixa Geral de Depositos
Banco Activo
Banco BPI
Millenium BCPdid NOT come up in the IRS search
But many of these will not allow a remote opening of the account
This article states that Activo and Caixa will allow a remote opening if you have a video call
I guess your attorney will have to determine if that is true
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We used Bison and most of the funds I contacted seemed to use them also. So far so good, with good customer service. I was nervous at first because they are a new-ish China based bank with no commercial presence in PT. Make sure to ask about their fees (about 100€/yr just to hold your shares.
Correct that Millenium is not included but Activo is a well regarded branch of the same group. After some research, is my preferred commercial bank in PT because they are focused on mobile banking. However, they are not currently accepting remote account openings.
Presumably if you provide your attorney with power of attorney they can open it for you because it’s not “remote”?
Porto, Lisbon and coastal area are excluded. If you will check full list of allowable areas, then you’ll find that in this regions property unlikely can be sold in the future
@Ravig80111 When I searched for “Portugal” on https://apps.irs.gov/app/fatcaFfiList/flu.jsf it returned 457 names. What filter did you apply to get to the 5 you list?
You can type in the name of the bank in the field above the country selection drop down list and just search for that name
Got it. So if I follow right, the 457 Portuguese entities listed on the IRS site are FATCA compliant. You listed the five you searched. I am opening an account at Banco de Investimento Global (BiG) and when they didn’t show on your list I had concerns. All good as they appear on the IRS FATCA list. Thanks for sharing the link.
Jayanth
I am going to be talking to one of the partners at Iberis this Friday 2/19 at 11a MST. I am sure he would be more than happy to talk to a others at the same time and kill many birds with one session.
If you send them an email they respond really fast with the info that you are looking for.
Curious if you’d share why you decided to go with BIG? I couldn’t find an English version of their site and that would make me a little nervous.
Yes I read a few of the summaries out there regarding the 280k/350k options and they seem to say various conflicting statements. Hopefully we can clarify this for people in the future but this Board is for investing in Funds, so I will not get off track. I did edit my post above.
Might you feel comfortable sharing the attorney/law firm you are using who are competent with Golden Visas through fund investments? Thank you in advance.
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After a couple of email exchanges with BancoActivo I confirmed that there is no way to open an account with them remotely. I even suggested a video call with my Portuguese attorney in their office…no dice.
So at this point it seems Bison Bank and Banco de Investimento Global (BIG) are really the only options. Not sure if someone like Barclays, BNP Paribas or Deutche Bank well let you use them. IF you ALREADY have an account with them might be worth pursuing.