[Music] the problem in this regard is that I see a lot of I get a lot of challenges when it comes to my name is Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday legal good morning I'm Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday legal today my dear guest is a very old friend Yan Mrazek he is the managing partner and founder of M/HQ the biggest multi fiduciary organization in the GCC today thanks a lot for having me great to see you great to see you as well have been few years we haven't met but I see your name and your uh podcast all the time I actually follow your podcast I like it thank you we are having our fifth episode uh uh this week it's quite a topic because we have 1,000 Foundation the AFC and adgm the same time we have these 50 so ready to go for the next 50 congratulations I have to ask you this question because I ask most of my guests yes what's your coffee I don't drink coffee I'm a tea man so uh CA every morning and in the office so if you pay us a visit you will see we have a selection of green tea in every one of our office thec GM and all the others fantastic I'll take you up on that and I will come for a cup of tea can you please make a proper introduction of yourself and of your company to the audience that people know you I know you very well but they would like to know and learn about you so Swiss origin I arrived in this country in 2005 and lo and behold nobody wanted to employ me so I had to uh try to find a different avenue to build a business because I was Swiss so not common law educated I didn't speak Arabic like you and I didn't dress as fancy as you do so um I had to do it this way and the vision was always to set up a multi fiduciary firm so what do we mean by this is Corporate Services platform with high strong technical capabilities that Services both the finance so Banks asset managers fund managers financial advisers and the proprietary investment think single family offices Foundation sophisticated investment companies trust and we have linked these two worlds together because they are very much tied and we provide Outsourcing services to all of them so today we have roughly 200 people that do that out of 8 GM ndfc we lead the market proudly uh but we also engage a lot probably we'll talk about it with the government in trying to uh change policies improve the positioning of this country as a financial and structuring hub and we have seen it doing monster jumps in uh two decades that's very true I agree with you and fantastic what you have done in uh in few years of course not few years in in a great great deal of years since 2005 until now can you tell me a little bit about the background for you yourself before you come from Switzerland what did you do and uh where did you study for example yeah so uh so I grew up in uh freeor Switzerland for those of you that do not know freeor this is the city where the Grier cheese comes from the one that we put in the mighty fond so that's where I come from and I was lucky because freeor University is the number one legal University in Switzerland so I studied there completely by accident I went to uh check out the option and because I was masquerading as a professional basketball player at the time I picked law because it was very much compatible with a lifestyle of a of an itinerant athlete so I did that I studied a little bit longer than average I studied for seven years instead of four and a half took my sweet time uh which was good because when I hit the market in Switzerland Geneva I passed the bar there a little bit more mature than my my peers passed the bar in 29 I was 29 and then I moved to the UAE because uh I wanted an adventure you got a great adventure here I got plenty fantastic um tell us a little what do you focus on and what's your um let's say The Sweet Spot in your profession what what do you like to provide as a service I'm sure we have 200 people doing different stuff but what is your speciality what do you prefer and like to service so really my I would say focus and what the part of of the firm where I'm the most active is is own for is everything around Legacy planning intergenerational uh structuring asset protection and that if you step back when I arrived in this country you had nothing the regulation was actually one federal law and it had one article in it that talked about uh succession so nothing pretty much so all this had to be created so I was lucky I was the chair of an organization called The Society of trust and estate practitioners Arabia branch which is is uh registered in the DFC as an npio and that group was able to work hand inand with the government to identify the gaps in the Legacy planning regulation locally and regionally both to C to the local clients but also to position the UA internationally as a financial inst structuring Center so we worked with the government on a number of initiatives uh I'm sure you are aware of the DFC Wills registry so we had our fingers in that Foundation this structure optimizing sucession tool that was introduced into the market in 17 and in 18 respectively in adgm and DFC and later on in Russ alkama uh we were very much involved in launching this project but also to educate the market something that continues today just returned from uh training one of the large Swiss bank in the DFC so that is typically our day today is I would say it's two things it's continue to try and expand policies in this country think single family offices uh regulation think how to optimize golden visa to combine them with people that actually hold assets under the foundation tax residence certificate needs to be optimized so there's always some small tweaks exemption of proprietary investment under tax so this the lobbying part and the working with the government to improve the ecosystem and then is to implement it for uh entrepreneurs uniquely we as a firm uh with this skin tone uh have about oneir of our clients that are UAE and GCC Nationals it's a big sense of Pride for us because when I arrived in this country it was pretty much only European and today the fastest growing part of our firm is actually local people that realized it is time to act consolidate their assets under modern tools whether they self administrate it or not and this is also what attracts a lot of very sophisticated people to this jurisdiction think single family office Ultra High n worth and the L that's amazing and as you just mentioned I realized that yes since 2005 until now there happen so many things and so many changes and regulations and the government have worked so much into making it really a wealth a hub for weal structuring where is the UE right now comparing to the world since you're coming from Switzerland which was the Hub worldwide and it remains relevant but uh I'm very proud of where the country is today and uh uh of course you try to be objective when you pitch and you promote and you educate people on the benefit of this Juris jurisdiction sorry but I do believe that uee today is on a path to something completely unique 20 years ago it was an offshore Center and we were a little bit slow in adapting best practice internationally but the government realized that if we want to play with the big boys we have to abide by International standard and then some yet to be very Nimble in trying to focus and adjust to the needs of the ultra wealthy what does that mean today most of the families that we know they want a high regulation High credibility jurisdiction because the Lesser player will actually want will not be able to enter that if you do not have good source of wealth today you cannot come to the UA people also want to control structure by themselves this is key especially the second third gen that wants to invest let's say in a in Angel investment and in VCS Etc you cannot give that to a trust and just let them do whatever so people now want more control so you need a jurisdiction where you live and where you structure and then you can allocate ventilate all around the world and then people want privacy a lot of data is in the public domain we believe that privacy is the new super currency and families are receptive to that so they go they choose jurisdiction that have a very high level of privacy yes you give your data to the registry yes you share with them with the custodians but in the public domain there's is very little and all three key registry in the uee whether the DFC whether the adgm or Russ ala all have systems where there's a very high level of privacy and all these element this scks the box now mean that the UAE is part of what I would Define as the super jurisdiction it is one of the top 10 uh to top 20 Financial Center in the world in fact the UA is deemed a Global Financial Center today and On The Rise uh it is I think top eight in the world in terms of foreign direct investment it has brought into a little country like this it's phenomenal and it is top 10 in the world as a structuring center so if you look at and you zoom out it's really the UK which has his own set of problems now the US which is pretty much uh stable I would say uh Hong Kong which is more on the decline with a lot of push from China and Singapore which I think is stable the only one of these five Super jurisdiction is the uee today and for the right correct objective reason amazing so in in your opinion what are the key factors that made the UAE change or helped the UAE since for the last 20 years for example transform from just one small Arab country which is very recently established into a giant player in the in this market yeah so I think it's two things first is the vision of the leadership this country is run like a high tech business it wants to grow it needs to grow if it wants to be sustainable because you have a lot of people here a lot of people that want to come but the local population is also growing and if you do not have some sort of a healthy inflation eventually it will not be good for the local people so you have to be growing you have to be Forward Thinking you cannot just say all right we'll finish that project and we move to the next remember when the new airport was launched everyone was saying but the old airport is not full yet the Swiss eny would have said uh well maybe you could do it later no you cannot you have to be Forward Thinking and plan years ahead and maybe you change your plans that's fine but you budget ahead of time and this I think the leadership it trickles down if you an entrepreneur here and you see that and you see at the government people being so active proactive engaged Etc I think it it puts a little bit more fire in in your belly and telling to that is the government private partnership this country would probably not be where it is today if there was not a very strong alignment between regulator govern government parties the judges the court Etc today the U is uniquely aligned in terms of what are our Master objective how do we get there and can we tap on the private private sector to turbocharge our policies and the answer is yes and there's a lot of Buy in from all the players I mean you are a foreigner I'm a foreigner yet we understood that if we contribute a little then maybe the government will realize that we can help each other and come up with some sort of new new policies so our firm uh since 2006 has drafted 16 white papers aimed at becoming regulations six of which have become law and it's you we're very proud about this and we were at the time a very tiny firm and a even smaller Law Firm but it was not about this it was recognizing an issue looking internationally what was being done come up with a solution demonstrate to the government what would be the benefit for the government both locally and internationally and actually even adapt this solution to make it better than internationally did you know that the DFCS today the jurisdiction with the highest level of asset protection among tier one Financial Centers no one knows this and what do you need you need a firewall provision and you need a statute of limitation which is I would say reasonable hook island has two years and it's and it has a very poor repetition the DFC has trade which is deemed to be balanced in a global world and this is something new something very uh I would say Forward Thinking I don't think it's even put enough out there yet but it will come the same way the DFC has now revamped its prescribed company regime and I think it will take the world literally by storm because the world has gone out of offshore dematerialized structures but now we have corporate tax to actually capture the filing you can go back to a vehicle that is yes super sophisticated but reasonably un onerous and that is ideal if you want to capture people to the jurisdiction they get familiar comfortable and then they invest more this is very interesting because I imagine that the DFC have made a few uh tweaks on this prescribed companies before and they had change it and return it back and so on and it's it's very much in line with how the UA is doing things I I've seen a lot of regulations and laws being introduced and then realize no no no no that's not the right thing and taking it back and also as you said the the business community and the public they receive these changes with the high flexibility let me ask you this uh in in line with what we're talking about right now what are the trends when we talk about wealth structuring and what are the the structures or what are the trends that most of the entrepreneurs are using right now so I think that the today's entrepreneurial family are getting much smarter and better educated to modern tools back in the days there was this concept of uh well we we wait until something comes and uh we face that issue when it comes unfortunately this has the ill effect of destroying value so we have a few sad stories locally of prominent entrepreneur families that did not have the proper things in place everything stall as a result destruction of value freeze and then it goes to the court which I think they they try very hard but they are not necessarily very well equipped to deal with a succession that is cross border and and amounting in billions so I think what we see today is the willingness to recognize that by acting early implementing wealth structuring structure optimization before aimed at preventing value destruction you actually create value and you are better tool to continue to invest allocate ventilate and often we have some corporate tax benefit if you have a foundation today that holds a pool of real estate you can ask for fiscal transparency and there's zero tax on that yeah the market doesn't know it yet you have 12,000 real estate agents today in this city we are trying to uh train the the smartest of them uh but not everyone knows that unfortunately and some people are still saying that you can go to a non-financial free zone to hold real estate which you can but what is the benefit for the client zero so I think and it's a more expensive structure as well it is and it's not sustainable I mean what is your car do you drive a sa 9,000 CD no it's discontinued today you buy a Tesla well the DFC adgm Russell K they offer you a Tesla so when you talk about the entrepreneurs today I think it's uh increasingly The increased use of fiduciary structure like foundation in particular trust to an extent but mostly Foundation many of them are are starting to create family office function as a standalone and it's it's again fiscally driven because uh imagine your daa where we used to share an office entrepreneur which has a family office function which is embedded which means carried in its LLC it works perfectly fine in a n tax world but with corporate tax you actually realize oh but I may be capture the these streams may be mixed so a lot of people are segregating these functions putting them in one of the two Financial free zones and as a result have something very sophisticated not only to help their current affairs but also to grow if you have a let's say a sophisticated investment vehicle in one of the two Financial Centers it's easier to raise money it is easier to do Club deals with your pal for the next big thing that that comes so rise towards sophistication increase use of domestic fiduciary structures because if you have the right tools here there's no need to go to Offshore jurisdiction of a lessel caliber that doesn't mean there is not a space for crossb structuring I think it's still there but it's for the right reason typically for double tax treaty benefit access to us or other markets but what the trend clearly is locally based entrepreneurs increasingly looking at local solution not only for their local assets not only for their Regional assets but for their Supra Regional and Global assets this is very interesting when I came here and probably it happened to you as well you either found people structuring their assets through the LLC which is the civil law uh and the local families and so on or a lot are registering their assets with trusts and it was usually offshore trust with nothing here so since you understand the two concepts where the common law and the civil law the trusts and the foundations which one do you think that fit it's more uh and let's say this one you think which one you think is more favorable for entrepreneurs who are from the region here it's very interesting what you ask because uh comparative studies for the past two three decades are always putting civil against scum I don't look it at this that's I do not look at it this way I first of all I think they have both evolved to pretty much being entangled Switzerland had look at the trust regulation Swiss which a Law Courts Swiss courts are looking daily trust being implemented in Switzerland uh Jersey gery I love man they all have Foundation which they incorporated into otherwise common law regime did you know that even the US has a foundation regime now oh so you have in Wyoming and uh I think it's New Hampshire Wyoming better uh but the what so it's we we call that concept crisscross where you actually take the best tours that are available and you implement them within the system uh that you have I as a Swiss actually trust more a common law jurisdiction with Decades of trust jurist Prudence that means Decades of fiduciary uh relationship Juris Prudence that would then apply that to a foundation then the other way around a civil law court that would look at a trust which I do not believe most civil law courts get so if you bring that to the UAE you say all right so who should rule on trust or foundation with think and that the DFC and adgm were the best forums yes were to have a trust regulation that is inhouse like the DFC trust law or foundations in fact Russ Al kma recognize exactly the same thing by saying we are at the disadvantage of our product if we are unable to use the DFC court or the adgm court and they are smart people so they listened and what they've done is we are going to sign these M so that people that have a Russell Kama Foundation can go in the ad GM to have this world local courts today are in my opinion ill equipped to deal with fiduciary structures which is why many families are structuring to these through these Financial Centers now which probably brings you to the local trust law uh which I hear is under not necessarily review but under let's think about it uh how we can really improve so that it works yeah uh I think there's a lot of opportunity to improve it I think it has its space called the the W is a very Regional tool and today local courts are ruling on walk so there is a spot for that but to your original question civil law common law which one is really better Etc to me it does not really matter it's uh I would probably argue that someone that has ruled under common law is probably better equipped to to deal with both Foundation or trust today but that doesn't mean that this is not a skill that can be learned amazing and for entrepreneurs from the region and businessmen local entrepreneurs by local I don't need mean morais I mean people resident here and having business and and Investments and so on do you see a lot of Foundations being established right now to structure the wealth here in the region or still people using the traditional ways of having LS or trust abroad so let's look at the numbers a little bit Yeah the DFC and adgm together have just crossed 1,000 foundations uh last week and if you add russle Kama you are give or take 1 380 I think Foundation as of this morning uh that's a lot that's a lot now let me blow you away half of this number was set up since the 1 January 2023 half wow what does that mean and we are on this this year we think that there's going to be 550 for a year that means that two things one that we have entered a period of maturity of the UAE as a financial center that means that people are trusting the center that trusting the tools that exist here two we are enter a period of mainstream consumption of DFC and adgm Tool and product the government again was smart if you charge a foundation registration fee in the DFC at $35,000 only a few will be able to use it and that would make it complicated today the registration fee of a DFC Foundation is 350 bucks it's exactly the same price in Abu Dhabi Global Market so it's very competitive the government doesn't want to make money out of these tools what it wants is to ensure that no uh value is destroyed that people are confident working living creating value in this country investing in this country and not parking money abroad we believe that cross border today is very challenging under the corporate tax if you have a BVI that you manage from here you have to report it for corporate tax so why would you do so talk to an entrepreneur yesterday he used to have a BVI he used to have a jaff sofure entity holding real estate he's swapping both for a foundation and a DC prescribed company to hold his business everything is here now he's still customizers abroad in Switzerland not to name it and I do not blame him for that because it's uh from the I would say allocation of assets it's probably a sound strategy but the bulk of his assets the bulk of his value 85% statistically of regional entrepreneur is in the region and increasingly structured through these domestic sophisticated structures so you spoke about the cost of the IFC and adjm being very little and very similar as well but I have a hard question for you I don't know if it's hard for you but it's important should is this for the ultra Rich emphatic no and it could be if you're Ultra Rich if you don't do it you're an idiot but now if you're an affluent plus think a couple that has a v here in Meadows too maybe one of them is Muslim the one know maybe the family of the husband has paid for the house doesn't like the wife too much should they structure structure optimize I would say yes because remember what I told you about control that little family that has two salaries can set up one of these structures they can set it up they can control it themselves which means reduce the cost and be the beneficiary if God forbid something happens to one of the parents tomorrow there's no freeze on that asset that house remains in the structure for the benefit of let's say the wife and uh their daughter there's a continuity of use and there's no potential avenues for the family that that may not necessarily like the wife that much uh to go and uh reclaim that house so we see quite a lot and that also if you can see it in the numbers we have a lot of rich people in in in Dubai and Abu Dhabi granted but you do not get to 500 foundations per year only with rich people that means that people like you and I I mean you're rich I'm nobody but uh people like you and I went to for these structures for their own personal use think real estate in Dubai maybe I buy a second home maybe I have a bank account uh maybe I do one or two Investments simple locally based cost efficient what about the taxation we haven't spoken about that I mean we spoke a lot about the foundation but the corporate tax is here and it's going to be implemented and people will start paying corporate tax why is foundation a favorite product structure so let's step back first and let's try to understand why fiscality in general you cannot be deemed a global player if you do not have some sort of sophisticated pH regime uh we today have V8 we have a number of import taxes and and some hidden taxes left right and Center luckily the cost of living here is reasonably high but people are still willing to stay so that I think it's it's balanced so the UA was almost would say encouraged to implement some sort of corporate tax so that it was deemed on par with others and not necessarily competing from a fiscal standpoint there is no end game in trying to say which are taxes the smart game is to say we are in the lowest bracket for these core activities among equivalent players think Singapore think think other quality jurisdiction and once we have that we make sure that we recognize the industry that we value the most and we do something called exceptions so why do you think that the UE has this family business regime because this is important for the economy so if you meet a certain number of CR IA as a family based here you will get some of these incentives watch uh this space some of which will be announced shortly if you are a money manager coming from the UK coming from Singapore coming from Switzerland whatever you are doing here is tax free because you are one of these activities that is completely removed so that's another appeal for UA to say come here in a tier1 financial center establish here and cover the world from here perfect that's why we have so many hedge funds that are coming in and now you look at proprietary investment so foundations are like funds like a trust Arrangement an instrument that can be deemed transparent from a fiscal standpoint that means that if you apply for transparency having lodged your books of accounts having them audited the FDA would then look at this and will say okay this is a Family Foundation the purpose of which was to consolidate assets which are Revenue generating in this country and because it is transparent you are actually taxed in the hands of the beneficiaries but if the beneficiary live in the UAE when there is no personal tax when there is no succession tax and where I do not expect neither to be implemented anytime soon then pretty much you have something that is completely tax neutral so the question is why are we doing that because uh uh why would the government not want to tax that well because it's a healthy ecosystem you want to it's good to tax but you also want to encourage entrepreneurship and reinvestment so if you start to tax everything then you you will stop reinvestment this country as we discussed earlier is big on invest here continue to invest here and through here so by having some of these tax efficient structures funds foundations trust Arrangement you actually encourage the people that generate the most wealth in this country to double down to continue to to invest as opposed to stalling them that's the that's the thinking about that yeah I agree with you and this is probably the reason there's so many high net worth individuals have been moving to to the UAE since 2020 until now and I think last year was significant there was so many huge number of millionaires and billionaires moving to the UAE what do you think about that so so it's a combination of both so it is true the U for the past two year has been number one in the world at attracting High net worth and ultra high netw worth and that is significant but it's not by chance it's really by Design and it's not only tax thing you need a combination of things first you need a good quality of life and you need security we have both and I level that is world class uh you have the connectivity and you have a and you have opportunities here too if you come here not just sitting on an island no you have good restaurants you have business opportunities you have conferences you have lots of stuff that is happening so I think that is attractive to a new breed of people some 20 years ago 30 years ago people have happily retired to Switzerland and do nothing today if you want a little bit more action the UA is clearly one of the places to watch the other thing is it is increasingly difficult for a global player to secure a long-term permanent residency in a tier one quality country if you want to go to Switzerland and get a c permit by the way you'll still need to get tax unless you pay a hefty foret of 200 250,000 bucks or if you want to go to Italy where you will also pay 200,000 bucks straight up not to be taxed it takes time and the permit is for 5 years renewable you go to Singapore where PR is 5 years and people are are literally scared of it not being renewed after 5 years when you come to the UA and say look we have recognized you as an entrepreneur we the government invite you and your family and your advisers to come here for 10 years no question asked here it is that is very powerful in attracting people in fact last week I had two super high Network that flew in done it red carpet style in two days they just came for the golden Visa yet we took them to a proper dinner after and they were like okay talk to me more about what I can do in this country and this is really a strategy Abu Dhabi has commissioned a substantial study on how to profile itself towards not the high netw worth but the super high net worth and the single family office world uh this will be rolled out now but they're already having a lot of success attracting these people for the past two years for the motives that we just mentioned but also it is because we have the right structures in place if you did not have trust you did not have if you did not have sophisticated proprietary investment companies these people would be less likely to make the full use of the ecosystem today we have an ecosystem like no other and the market is uh realizing this in at a time where about 50% of the world's countries uh about to be voted this is an instable world so when you have an island like uh we are which is healthy and attractive and and on the growth side uh and that knows exactly what it wants to do do it's pretty good yeah you know the region is all let's say as we all know we grow up seeing the Middle East not so uh much in stability in terms of the security or whatever political position on the economical position as well there's a lot of instability but on the positive side so I see Qatar is doing amazing Egypt have been doing very well as well Saudi the our neighbor is doing and amazing how do you see their development and the growth that is happening in the neighboring country would affect the UAE yeah so and Egypt loves the UAE clearly uh a lot of Egypt ultra high Network have restructured some of their Holdings whether operational or not through the UAE why because they want a credible head of their empire that can interact from a tier one Financial jurisdiction that has the same culture same values not too far from them so they could have gone to to Luxembourg to Switzerland to the UK today the reality is they are coming here more so super interest so our firm view we are based in adgm we are based in thec there is for us currently uh no real reason to go to Saudi because we love tier one Financial Centers Saudi economy thumb up we are big fans we are monitoring very closely we do a lot of work for Saudi families but from here KSA as a financial center today it is not a Global Financial Center yeah it is an International Financial Center an emerging one at that so Riad is 84 in the world according to the uh latest study it's stable it's not even on the rise because everything is so new now that doesn't mean that it will it may Turbo Charge within two or three years people have big Ambitions in Saudi clearly but I think that if Saudi is to rise as we all expected to it's only gravy for the UAE because you can work in clubs it's like if you are a club of corporate services providers or laow firms that actually work in good intelligence and share data everyone Rises I want to take you back to the corporate structures and in particular to the foundations yeah you known in the UAE as the Goda of the UAE foundations and you promoted the most and you like the structure very well yeah um you have mentioned as well that since January 2023 until now maybe half of the foundations were established so where do you see the future of this corporate structure so we have entered the era of mainstream so clearly it's not going anywhere I can tell you it looks like much but the level of penetration is still too low I go to Abu Dhabi a lot we have an office there we see local families we are now starting an initiative with the Abu Dhabi DED so that every family is made aware of the tool of its benefit of its existence for intergenerational legacy planning the corporate tax aspect and benefit this is gravy but to me the most important is that all these families that have built substantial wealth do not destroy it as a result of poor succession planning so I think think it will continue to explose I think that most of the corporate Registries that are not sophisticated will disappear uh there are a few in in Dubai which I do not believe have a future they were very useful in the past to grow this place it's time to move on to a 2.0 3.0 version and most of these structures are in the DC's to it and the adgm and Russell K to it there is 5,000 Corporate Services providers today in this country this is too much yes uh and the regulation on these are rising and is good because it protects the jurisdiction do you know how many Corporate Services providers operate out of either adgm or the AFC compared to these 5000s I think in ad GM the maximum is like 55 or 60 and the maybe less than 10 you very good almost there so 75 between adgm and DFC and that's important for the market to be aware of because when someone goes to a sophisticated firm like yours or happens to pass through the door of mhq uh we tell them about everything and we tell them that best practice is in these two centers unfortunately some clients will then go and double check and triple check with some other of these 5,000 people so ah it's untested it's not really good why because they are not allowed to offer the service out of these two centers so this to me you said where is it going is the challenge of getting rid of those csps that are unwilling to evolve in line with the parameters of the UAB Global Financial Center much more knowledge on the structure and the last is the banks need to come to the party and become better at understanding the tool and servicing it both from a operational bank account standpoint but also uh from a financing standpoint to it we have conducted a study last year with a GSB the IFC firm on financing assets under Foundation we surveyed 80 Financial institution only 20% of this 80 were telling us we are able to look into the opportunity none had a policy in place that was focused on the opportunity yet if I talk to the entrepreneurs at large in the Middle East 85% are in the Middle East most of them have leverage so if I want to restructure that I actually need the bank to be part of that I need to be able to refinance my my credit line understanding this that is coming this we believe is the biggest opportunities for bank and financial institution in the Middle East ever is to understand the tool the flow and then to be able to capture a new flow of business the banks that will have a strategy will win the banks that will not will not disappear but lose out this is a one of the most interesting things I heard uh about foundations and I be very very honest I would like to deliver a message to all the UAE Banks whether local or for they are foreign Banks and they're registered here they have to understand foundations they have to study it they have to put policies to open the bank accounts it is extremely difficult to educate and to teach someone from a bank where we apply to open a bank account for a foundation it takes a little bit of time if you're not going to private banking or structure wealth management uh firms if you just go to local bank who you want to open a bank account there's a quite a some hurdles and I think if you manage to get a bank to finance a foundation and give them leverage on their assets which is quite significant at the moment that will change the game and it will enter a new player into the a new client completely huge new client for the for the banking sector so and we have we're not The Specialist of of that but we have managed for a few clients to remortgage uh their house which they sell told onto a foundation we have managed to um repackage credit lines done to a a corporate that was also restructured on the foundation but it's on an ad hoc basis it takes a lot of effort not necess a lot of time a lot of effort we're enthusiastic people at mhq so we love what we do and we do not have a problem educating re-educating Etc but Bank are driven by risk when they see something that they perceive as new or slightly more riskier often they have c fit and they send it to someone that is in the legal department what we want is to sit there at a table with them explain and to what is the biggest issue actually it's potentially reclaim the asset if you have a default there if you have a mortgage on a property today and you default whether it is in your name in a company or in a foundation there's no difference in reclaiming that asset so there should not be a difference in treatment in terms of credit line you give yet the market tells us that they view this as different between an individual corporate and a foundation we think it is correct it will change the question is how F true if I ask you to introduce one new law to the UAE what which one would you think of um so what what can I disclose because we already working on it so uh so we have uh we have done quite a lot of stuff over the past uh few years so if you recall Foundation were introduced the sophisticated spvs or prescribed company in the two Financial Center so that it opened these two centers to the masses instead of just being focused on selling real estate that was brilliant the golden Visa I think was fantastic but very tied up to the golden Visa was something that we also uh lobbied for which was the new tax resident certificate regime so this game still need a bit of fine-tuning I would say two rules that are coming one is right now you can get a golden Visa if you have an investment in your name unfortunately if in the foundation yeah that you have set up committed the money for and another beneficiary of your wife you do not qualify that is silly it needs to change the government is aware it's going to the Motions but it's still not their mainstream I predict that this will change it's not a rule it's a practice but this needs to change the definition of what is an a qualifying investment for Golden Visa purposes need to change need to be enlarged two you we talked proprietary investment we talked attracting the financial players Banks asset managers fund managers and you have seen a lot no doubt a lot of global fund player coming here now not all these fund players are actually setting up and launching local funds it's started so what is required in our view is the sophisticated family need to have a tool that is a low regulation or unregulated fund like structure to be able to pull with their friends and over time increase it decrease it something very flexible to be able to pull financing for one project at a time luckily it exists it's called a Cav in Luxembourg it's called a VCC in Singapore and guess what it's coming in a financial center near you in the coming weeks we worked together and we were colleagues uh back in the days many years ago uh not that we are too old but we uh are decently aged yeah I was young and good-looking at the time still very well dressed and goodlooking um I know as well well that you are a voracious reader and I would like that you recommend a book to our audience of something that interesting that you would recommend to read so to add to your pile here yeah know very happy to it's funny it's uh at the firm since Inception so we launch in 2009 and every year we had uh a book of the year that I pick uh amongst what we had and that we give to friends to our staff to to clients and to to people that have been helping us just as a you know small token of appreci I think it's a lost art to uh to give a few of them yeah so so uh what do we have this year so last year we did a fantastic book about humor seriously that's how it's called humor seriously and it is a book about how you can use humor to do better business with all the guidelines around this not making fun of your stuff but actually making fun of yourself and to to use that to dissipate tension so humor seriously was our last year books great this year we have reverberation excellent book it's um you like music I'm sure yes so that's a book about how to do everything better with music and it's not only how but why so you want to get motivated you put some sort of music you want to relax you put some sort of music and you want to spend some time with your wife you put something else that's very interesting thank you very much I'll make sure that I get these two books one from you and the other one I would buy and thanks uh with this I would like to thank you so much for coming this was really fun and uh hopefully we'll invite you again and again to talk about the new legislations when they come in force anytime you need us but many thanks and uh congrats what you're doing is really pushing the the industry it's good it is important that people like you actually talk to the masses and explain in simple word what sometimes lawyer tend to over complicate keep it simple keep on doing what you're doing thank you thank you so much Yan with this uh I would like thank you very much for uh being patient and hearing and watching the podcast until the end this is your dose from Monday legal see you next week