Bard Santner expands to Victoria Falls

BARD Santner Markets has expanded its operations to Victoria Falls by setting up an offshore corporate services unit to tap into the growth potential of Zimbabwe’s offshore centre in the resort town.

The Victoria Falls Offshore Centre is an emerging regional financial hub, with the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), a United States dollar-indexed bourse which offers currency stability and certainty, as its commercial heartbeat.

The Harare-based banking and finance advisory firm’s expansion to Bard Santner Offshore Corporate Services ― which includes the opening of new offices in the resort town ― follows a successful capital markets conference in London which was attended by companies, corporate executives and investors, from Zimbabwe and other countries.

Bard Santner Markets’ executive director, Tatenda Hungwe

The conference, organised by Bard and Financial Markets Indaba, opened new opportunities and doors for Bard and other companies.

Bard executive director Tatenda Hungwe, who oversees the wealth management division, said the capital markets conference was a lesson on the need to engage and explore to unlock capital and new opportunities.

“Our expansion and new location provide, inter-alia, management, fund administration, trusteeship and other corporate administration and secretarial services in the Victoria Falls financial centre. To achieve this, we have professionals with in-depth knowledge and understanding of the latest rules and regulations governing businesses and other legal entities,” Hungwe said.

“We are well-equipped to take care of a wide variety of administrative and regulatory tasks on behalf of clients, while they concentrate on their businesses. As a result, we hope multinational corporations, large enterprises, and listed companies will soon be taking advantage of the new business dispensation created in Victoria Falls.

“As shown by our expansion strategy, we are ready to offer services on foreign direct investments, advice on taxation, structuring of cross-border investments, corporate structures for international trade, transfer pricing issues, intellectual property and royalties matters, compliance and due diligence requirements and cost-efficient international outsourcing and virtual offices.”

“Corporate services provide the support structures that facilitate the functioning of the centre and enable the jurisdiction to flourish,” Hungwe said.

Vinod Bussawah, Bard’s Mauritius-based chairman, said the Victoria Falls financial hub initiative is a major step towards ensuring that Zimbabwe addresses some of its investment climate challenges to become more attractive to capital.

“Demand for capital across Africa is constrained by undeveloped local financial markets and sometimes unstable political and economic environments that make global investors uncomfortable lending their money. From my experience in Mauritius, the development of the Victoria Falls Offshore Centre goes a long way to address some of those operational environment challenges to safeguard investment and ensure good returns,” he said.

“The steps to becoming a fully-fledged international centre are progressive. It is about having a robust regulatory and legal environment, instilling a culture of compliance, ensuring political stability, investment in infrastructure, ease of doing business and access to expertise. All this is transformative because it attracts long-term capital.”

Bard Santner, which strongly believes there is opportunity in every challenge, is the first financial institution to register and set up in the Offshore Centre.

Meanwhile, Hungwe said Bard works with a local and global network of professionals, including accountants, lawyers, banks, trust companies, fiduciaries, independent financial advisors, and tax advisors.

“With our extensive network, we guarantee to provide the highest level of service locally and in other jurisdictions. Our corporate secretarial services include the provision of registered office; registered agent; company secretary; local or non-resident directors; nominee shareholders; maintenance of statutory records and filing of returns among other things,” he said.

Apart from being Zimbabwe’s premier tourism destination, with a global reputation and tourist source markets, Victoria Falls is slowly emerging as a financial hub since the establishment of a special economic zone, a stock exchange and the broader strategy of making it a regional financial centre in the mould of Mauritius.

Bard Santner Offshore Corporate Services’ objective is to offer banking, asset management, insurance or financial markets instruments with venues and supporting services for these activities.

The VFEX, the heart of the new financial hub, was established in 2020 as a subsidiary of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to operate in the tourism town’s special economic zone.

The ultimate objective is to make Victoria Falls a regional financial hub like Mauritius.

Mauritius now boasts a track record of more than two decades in attracting cross-border business, investment and finance.

As an internationally recognised financial jurisdiction of major repute, it is home to international banks, legal firms, corporate services, investment funds and private equity funds.

Zimbabwe has ambitions of doing the same, with Victoria Falls, the country’s premier tourist destination, being positioned to become its financial services hub.

Since its independence in 1968, Mauritius has successfully progressed from the sugar-based monoculture to a diversified economy that includes manufacturing, tourism, finance, and a budding high-tech sector.