By Amechi Ogbonna
Franklin Nechi is the Chairman of Optiva Capital Partners Limited, a leading Investment Immigration Wealth Management Company with outstanding global affiliations.
He recently spoke with select Business Editors in Nigeria where he gave more insight, into his firm’s commitment to supporting Nigerians get access to global investment opportunities all over the world
Excerpts.
Optiva Capital has been in business for thirteen years. It’s safe to assume that you have grown from an insurance brokerage firm into a full-fledged wealth management organisation. What have been the key success factors for you so far
The story of Optiva Capital Partners cannot be told without reckoning with the environment. It has been a challenging business environment, policies that have made it difficult in terms of operating environment, but one of the things we have prioritised as a company has been to recognise our staff, and then the customers.
Optiva Capital has been about staff and customers. So by selecting the best in the market and motivating them and creating greater opportunities for employees, training and incentives to create and develop loyal staff because their loyalty is key to our progress. So where we are able to channel everybody’s eye to the goal and creating an environment that is conducive for growth that has been key to our progress. When you have highly motivated staff then they are able to deliver on your promises to your customers. So we have developed a culture where the staff are constantly seeking to give more to the client, which is our goal.
In Nigeria, Assets under Management at the end of 2022, of which Investment Immigration is a sub-set was estimated at N3.5 trillion, according to Agusto and Co., with expectation of moderate growth rate of 15.9 per cent over the next three years. How is Optiva leveraging this space to increase its market share?
If you look at the projections in terms of growth that talks about a need, a need to provide solutions, so how have we prepared to take advantage, basically to leverage on the need that already exists in the market. So what we have set out to do first of all, over the years we have strengthened and worked on our network of international partners and have strengthened that base and right now we can say that we have a rich network of international partners. Why are these important? To be able to provide the solutions, in terms of investment immigration, investment services and advisory.
These are very specialized solutions that require professionals, so our network of international partners across investment immigration, advisory, forms part of our confidence to be able to continue to expand our offerings of solutions.
So when it comes to investment immigration, you talk about the holistic view, looking at all the jurisdictions. So at Optiva Capital we have got the whole range of investments. So depending on what our clients need would be, if they are looking for global access, if they are looking for immigration, then basically we have got that, so that is one of the ways we have put in the platforms to leverage this anticipated growth.
Tell us about some of your partnerships in Investment Immigration for Citizenship By Investment (CBI)
One of our success stories is our ability to develop partnerships with strong and well recognised reputable institutions. One of them is Stuart Financial with headquarters in Montreal, Canada, a global company with offices in many countries.
They are the financial intermediaries to the Quebec Government, and they are members of the investment regulatory Council of Canada. A very strong institution, they have never had any African partner before now, and we are their only African partners.
They have offices in five countries including the USA, and we are their only African partners. Then you have the Heng Sheng Group, which is another global group with footprints in many countries like USA, China, Singapore, Grenada. They have the largest investment in the Caribbean right now, a $2.4billion investment. They are building the Grenada National Resort. We are equally their only African partner because prior to our relationship with them they had pockets of relationship but as soon as we came everything was subsumed into our relationship. Then we have Range Developments, an award-winning developer of luxury resorts offering Citizenship By Investment programmes in Grenada and the Caribbean.
We are not exclusive because Range has other partners. We also have Anchor Capital, easily the largest trading investment banking group in South Africa with Asset Under Management of over Seven Billion US Dollars. We are their only partners right now. There is also AIL, an international insurance group, and also TIW Capital Group, a global asset management company in South East Asia with offices in Singapore, India, and UAE. Then we have CTP in Tampa, Florida, USA, which develops and manages over 760 old peoples’ homes. So we have a very strong and robust operation and we hope to grow it
Investment immigration is a premium service and thereby not promoting financial inclusion? How are you expand your offerings to attract more participants to take advantage of your services?
First of all its about everything we are doing right now. We have laid the right foundation, we have got the solutions, supported by international financial partners, and we have got the distribution. So what we are doing is deepening the market, the number of clients, the number of people who walk through our doors and we provide the solutions. Right now we have provided the solutions to thousands of families and you can actually see our commitment, our investments in the Nigerian space both in terms of our footprint, the quality of our people.
In terms of offerings for Nigerians who cannot afford Investment Immigration, what are the other options for a holistic wealth management and investment advisory
When you talk about our commitment and our holistic offering of solutions, that means for different people across different life stages, we have got solutions. Investment immigration by nature is a premium service that is legislated and introduced by Acts of Parliament in the various jurisdictions that we deal with and it is for high networth individuals to be able to bring in investments to spur economic growth in those jurisdictions.
But apart from that, at Optiva Capital Partners, we have our holistic offering when it comes to wealth management. With investment immigration you have to deal with different options, so if you are looking at Canada there are different investment amounts. But looking at investment services and advisory, what we have is still a full range of investment services for clients so whatever their life stage is, whether they are new entrants into the workplace, or middle level management or they are new families in their thirties or in their forties, we have got investment solutions for them that are well designed.
Your parting shot for Nigerians seeking to explore the world, cultures, boundless opportunities and global connections?
The first message is that if the world were to be like a book, if you operate in one country, you are reading only one page. People should begin to see the world as one because that is how it is configured right now especially in the business world. So you have to see yourself as operating in all of them so that you will be able to take advantage of what exists in all the places. Also look at life as a marathon and not a sprint, which means that if you are rich today you also have to be thinking about tomorrow by making plans for tomorrow so that there will be long term wealth.
So if you have visas, which are access, to travel today, how do you make them permanent? There are people who thirty years ago could travel to where they wanted to but today they are denied visas, so its important people think of second citizenship, so you get your umbrella before it starts raining.