The first quarter of 2007 has been a very good one for the BVI.
On the back of a continued golden period for much of the global economy, the BVI continues to boom. The Financial Times Special Report on the BVI, which was published on 9 March, paid a glowing tribute to the way in which the BVI has continued to develop and position itself.
The BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 ("BC Act") now governs almost all BVI companies and, as a reminder, it replaced the International Business Companies Act (Cap. 291) on 1 January 2007.
In terms of transaction flow for corporate work, as private equity's grip on the M&A market seems to get even tighter the BVI is benefiting across the private equity spectrum. The streamlined dividend and redemption procedures in the BC Act in particular are proving to be very popular with VC houses and corporates.
The IPO market is certainly putting up a good fight and we have worked on a significant number of listings in the first quarter on the European and North American exchanges. AIM has remained the real darling for BVI companies over this period with the most prominent trend being the number of Chinese based companies looking to AIM for fund raising. Recent figures suggest that some 35 per cent of the international companies that came to AIM in 2006 were from the British Virgin Islands and other offshore centres.
In our first paper, BVI Basics - Finance Transactions, we look at why BVI companies are so well suited for AIM and consider issues such as how the Takeover Code can be accommodated.
In our second paper, BVI Companies, AIM Listings and the Takeover Code, we go back to basics for the debt markets. Although BVI companies are the most popular offshore vehicle in the world in terms of numbers we thought it was timely to produce a brief paper which highlights the reasons why the BVI is such a popular choice when it comes to choosing a finance vehicle. Our paper sets out the main advantages of using the BVI and should be a useful checklist when looking at any finance transaction.
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