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I work for a rapidly growing private company. We have 9 operating companies in Europe (England, Germany, Denmark, France, & the Czech Republic) and given our continuing growth, we are considering establishing a Regional Headquarters somewhere in Europe. Can others provide recommendations on where to locate a regional HQ or holding company, from tax and ease of doing business perspectives?
Anonymous
Response:
Switzerland and Malta can be advantageous from a tax perspective and are both pretty nice places to live, for some people. In Switzerland, different regions (called Cantons) have specific tax treatments & agreements that can be negotiated, so you need to look at multiple individual Cantons. This gives you the flexibility of choosing a French-speaking or German-speaking (or even Italian-speaking) Canton, though. Malta is in the EU and is thus not considered a negative tax haven in the sense that the Cayman Islands or other places are. However, it still has much lower taxes than many other EU countries and is a civilized place with good banking, legal, and accounting services and a very long history of peace, rule of law, etc. Holland is supposed to be another country to consider for a holding company, many Dutch people speak excellent English, and, like Switzerland, it is very close to most of the countries where you already have operating companies.
Best regards,
Anonymous
Response:
If I had to pick a country out of the locations stated it would probably be UK unless the 50% personal income tax rate is a decisive factor. Otherwise, we see Switzerland being used quite a bit on account of favourable tax regimes. Luxembourg is also popular, particularly in a PE context, but probably not if they actually want to have HQ personnel on the ground. Belgium and Netherlands also have good HQ/holding company offerings. But UK is genuinely competitive if they want to have real people located in a HQ building, and the other subs are genuine trading entities. However, the individual factors associated with where its key people want to live and where the existing business functions are located are usually the decisive ones, and no one regime stands head and shoulders above the rest.
John E. Kahn (JohnEKahn@yahoo.com)
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