I also invested in the open-ended IMGA AƧÅes Portugal fund which I purchased through BCP Millenium. This fund is definitely legit - I and all my family have been pre-approved and we have all completed our biometrics appointments. Now awaiting residence cards - hopefully not waiting forever!
Regarding the bank account with BCP - I opened it remotely from the UK - I had zoom meetings with the private client bank manager and sent all required paperwork by email or courier as required. Fortunately BCP has a small office in London so I was also able to pop in there to expedite signing of documents, bringing in my original ID documents, passport etc which they took copies of and transmitted to BCP in Portugal. When I was ready I transferred the funds to BCP from my UK account via Moneycorp (for the currency exchange).
You can access your BCP account online and also via the Millenium app. Once the funds are received into your BCP account you can just purchase the units in the IMGA fund right inside your BCP online account.
Your online account (or the app) shows the real-time value of your IMGA fund - you can login in anytime and see whether itās gone up or down - plus any additional cash balances you might wish to keep in your account.
I keep a surplus of cash to make GV payments in Portugal, like lawyer fees, SEF fees, fiscal representative fees, etc. The BCP private client manager is only an email away (or a phone call) and she has been responsive and helpful.
They have provided all the paperwork required for SEF - for the initial application it shows that we have made the GV investment, for the biometrics it shows we continue to hold the GV investment.
The best thing with this fund is that there is no lock-in whatsoever - youāre not stuck with for 6, 7 years,ā¦ If we were rejected by SEF, or we changed our mind, or for any reason whatsoever they donāt even ask you - I can take my money out any time, no questions and no exit charges or penalties either.
Spot on, completely agree. My fund is BPI Portugal, through BPI Bank, but the experience was the same. (Note BPI Portugal is not for US persons). Both BPI Portugal and IMGA have been around for about 30 years, so confident theyāll be in place for the duration. (The Optimize fund mentioned above I think is quite recent, which would give me pause.)
To add: (a) very quick process, investment was done in a couple of days, (b) reasonable fees (1.2% pa, more than a typical ETF but not crazy, & no entry/exit fees), and (c) apparently not impacted by any changes to GV renewal terms.
I donāt know if IMGA is for US persons or not, but it should be very easy to find out.
I do believe an open-ended fund is the way to go, for the simplicity, ease and peace of mind regarding any contractual terms, potential tie-ins or whatever. I simply would not want to be reliant on promises of developer buy-backs in the case of a hotel/property PE/VC fund. And even the benefit of having a room in a hotel development available for your one or two week visits to PT, honestly you can just book a hotel, Air BnB or whatever whenever you want to make short trips to PT. Thereās no need to tie yourself in to a PE/VC fund for 6+ years just for that. I just donāt see the attraction of any of these funds. You can even plan your visits to PT around low season and go to less touristic locations for cheaper vacation prices.
Of course if you intend to actually live in PT then real-estate may be right for you, in this case a house you will actually be living in.
However one thing I would say - given that with the IMGA and other similar open-ended fund options youāre looking at making a EUR500K investment, whilst I gather that with some of the hotel/property development funds you can go in with EUR280K - sorry Iām not up on all the details so this is a bit vague - as this is a substantial difference in amount of funds needed then in such a case such EUR280K hotel/property funds may be right for some GV investors, although I would be very wary if you are just starting the process given the latest uncertainties around the GV legal framework.
IMGA is fine for US persons - theyāve jumped through the regulatory hoops to allow that.
The counter-argument to the fund route, perhaps, is this nebulous concept of āconnections to the national communityā that are required for naturalisation. People keep assuring me that owning real estate in Portugal is not required to establish those connections, but itās possible that in 5 or 6 years the interpretation might be that itās helpful to own a flat in Porto or wherever.
Yes, I guess so, owning real estate is likely a stronger connection than owning some units in an equity fund. Iām crossing my fingers and hoping for the best though, that our newly acquired Portuguese language skills, some regular visits to PT and the five years of GV residence will get us over the line. But this is not legal advice!
You no longer have to prove anything beyond the fact that you did 5 years of residency under one visa scheme or another. They changed the law in recent years to reflect this.
I have a question regarding GV fund subscription process. I am currently looking real estate funds, not open-end equity funds. My question is whether I can simply transfer money from any Portugal-based bank to the fundās administrator/custodian. Once the subscription is completed, they will keep a record of my units in the fund. Currently, I am engaging someone to open a Novo Banco account for me remotely. I hope my selection of funds will not be limited due to custodian or marketing relationships between fund managers and banks.
I am curious if anyone here invested in MedCapital fund and can share how that fund is doing or what investments it is pursuing? Given the news about hospital strikes and collapses I wonder if that translate to better or worse performance for the fund.
hi friends,
great threadā¦
i have been in search of funds also for my customers also since 3 months. however, it is really difficult to assess and choose a fund ,saying frankly . what i can say with my fiance background that most of them you wouldnt find standing after 7 years! it is impossible that portugal economy would let these funds to have the return of %5-%10
will contunie to follow up and shareā¦
and for lawyer list and prices ā¦no comment
Most likely the funds wouldnt exist without foreign investors being handcuffed to them. Always a good sign that nobody but the captive audience invests in themā¦
One option might be the open-ended equity funds which track the index. For example, BPI Portugal has been around for nearly 30 years, and has delivered
8.3% pa compounded over 5 years,
22.7% pa compounded over 3 years,
13.2% last 12 months
Past performance etc etc
IMGA Portugal runs a similar strategy. But I donāt know if they pay any commissions to introducers, if thatās important to you.
for the PE i wouldnt see any point to discuss. just would amaze how people would put their savings to such investements !! public VC ones are better for sure, however on those you need to have a professional assesment for each. the main disadvantage is, you dont have any control for the fund protfolio at allā¦ you accept all the bonds and shares included , and dont have any saying at allā¦ i asked IGMA director, what would happen when we all pull out our money when we have citizenship!!? just a smile and no answer
I donāt know why (s)he didnāt reply, but the answer is straightforward. They would sell the large listed companies in their portfolio; their holdings represent a very small fraction of the shares in issue of the underlying companies (typically around 0.5%).
In the extreme (and unrealistic) case, if every single investor in IMGA wanted to get out on the same day, it would take a couple of weeks to generate 70% of the fund as cash, assuming they accounted for a leisurely 20% of average market volumes; and there are gating provisions in the docs to allow this.
This was one of my main due diligence points around my investment; I wanted to be clear that if my plans changed, if the law changed or for any other reason, I could exit my investment within at most a month, and not have it locked up for years. My other concerns were transparency of investments, relatively low fees, and to be satisfied that I wasnāt buying obviously overvalued assets just to get the ARI.
okā¦ but how it would effect the portugal economy!! and what they would think to protect and prevent capital flow out? any guarantee for not changing the law as it is done for air bnb structures ?
True, sure. But what differentiates this from any other private equity anywhere else in the world? You hand your money to the VC after doing whatever evaluation you can, and you pray you know what they are doing, and thatās that.
My point is that you would seem to be castigating Portuguese VC specifically; what I am saying is that what you object to is not specific to Portugal.
There are plenty of reasons to invest in private equity. It is not for the faint at heart, I fully agree, and i do think a lot of people are investing in these funds in Portugal without any real idea of what they are getting into. This is, however, not especially different than what happens most times to most people anywhere.
Please describe to me the not-self-directed investment vehicle where you as the investor have any control of the fund portfolio at all? I am curious, as Iām unaware of such a thing and Iād love to understand this.
I would disagree with the use of the word āimpossibleā. Any given fund can always perform above the indexes. Is it likely? shrug. āimprobableā seems more accurate. Like anywhere else. That said, some funds are indeed returning around 5% in sustainable fashions.
I think what I would say above all, as I have said many, many, many times hereā¦ is that what you appear to be looking for and/or expecting is the āsafetyā and liquidity and protections that you would expect to find in a major economy. Portugal is not a major economy. It is a small economy. It does not have deep pools of liquidity. It has not been around long enough to have strong entrenched investor rules and regs. It has some trappings of a major economy due to its ties to the EU, but thatās it. If you invest in Portugal, you are taking significant risks. Period. So if thatās what you require, go elsewhere.
Could you tell us a bit more about VMCA and what does it do?
This is a common practice worldwide for RE investments, more evident in Caribbean islands / Greece et.al., if you are mentioning about a P.E fund paying out a 10% of the total investments made in Portugal, that should be mentioned inside the offering document. Could you kindly let me know which P.Eās does this one? I can pull out their offering document and verify the same.
Not sure what do you mean by this? Are you aware of the regulatory red-tape and the ironfist supervision in a Portuguese Securities market? Have you ever seen a fraudulent instance in the PE arena in Portugal? Would be more than happy to be educated here.
