Beating the odds: Adviser launches firm in two countries amid pandemic

Charlton House Wealth Management is regulated in both the UK and Hong Kong. Catering to clients who live between the two countries, Snelling branched out on his own after UK firm Strabens Hall moved its focus away from Hong Kong.

"I partnered with Strabens Hall to set up a Hong Kong office in 2014… advising international mobile clients on their financial planning and investment management. Strabens Hall exited [Hong Kong] in 2018, so it's given me the opportunity to setup my own Hong Kong business," he explained.

The plan to set up the business dated back to October 2019 and Snelling said the pandemic meant this process was delayed and largely conducted remotely.

"I was targeting the end of April to get the website ready and launched. Throughout this lockdown, I have been working on a reduced capacity … a lot of deadlines got pushed back slightly," he said.

Chartered financial planner Nick Robinson and non-executive director Andrew Russell will also join Charlton House. 

Most of the firm's business comes from clients with at least £1m of investable assets who are relocating from Asia back to the UK.

"Quite often they need advice in Hong Kong and they need to implement that financial advice in their investment structure before they leave Hong Kong and before they arrive in the UK," Snelling explained. 

He said the vast differences in tax structures between the two jurisdictions underpinned a lot of his work.

"Hong Kong is a very low tax jurisdiction, so the maximum anyone would pay on their earned income is 15%. There's no income tax on savings or investments over there, no capital gains tax. So people are moving from a very benign tax jurisdiction to the UK - one that is very complicated and much more onerous in terms of the rates of tax people pay," he said.

"So it's a quite obvious these people have earned money offshore and they want to make sure they get their planning in order so that they don't unnecessarily pay tax on those offshore earnings when they come back into the UK."

Snelling added that the regulatory burdens of establishing advice firms in Hong Kong and the UK were similar, but the cost was higher in Hong Kong. 

"However the cost going forwards is higher in the UK as Hong Kong generally doesn't have the same requirements and costs for things like professional indemnity insurance and various levies and fees," he said. 

Charlton House has discretionary management licenses in Hong Kong and manage money on an advisory and discretionary basis.

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