Wealth Solutions & Wealth Planning
PraxisIFM Hong Kong’s new MD, Joanna Caen, on Growth, Commitment and the Drive to Transparency
Joanna Caen of PraxisIFM
Aug 26, 2020
Joanna Caen is the new Managing Director of PraxisIFM Nerine (Hong Kong) Ltd., which is owned by PraxisIFM, a listed independent financial services group providing private client, corporate, fund, pension and international expansion services across multiple global jurisdictions. PraxisIFM boasts a 57% employee ownership of the shares in the business. Hubbis connected to Caen recently via video call and found someone who is evidently both committed to and thoroughly enjoying her new role. From the discussion, it was very clear that client service and close and enduring relationships lie at the true heart of her motivations. In Asia, she said, where families and businesses are still so intimately interconnected, far more so than in Europe, she is fascinated by the ability to work so closely with clients and families to provide a wide range of services across their companies, to individual members and for the family at large, all of which she sees as remarkably satisfying. Each client, she explained, has a unique set of personal, family and business circumstances which play a significant part in determining their financial needs, aspirations and expectations, and under her watch, PraxisIFM Hong Kong will continue to take a holistic perspective and long-term vision of those vital requirements and expectations.
Caen begins by explaining that the firm today operates across the globe, with offices in 17 countries. The corporate services teams, she reports, specialise in the establishment and administration of a wide range of company structures and the private client offering includes a wide range of bespoke professional services to an international client base, with great experience in assisting all types of clients in achieving their objectives in areas such as asset protection, wealth and succession planning, as well as for philanthropy.
Hong Kong is the base for the Asia business, from which the business connects to clients, their advisors and professional intermediaries providing services that include: trust services; corporate formation and secretarial services; visa and immigration assistance; accounting and bookkeeping; and regulated intermediary formation services for BVI companies.
Caen joined PraxisIFM in her current role on July 2, taking over from Melanie Ison, who has now returned to Guernsey to work at PraxisIFM’s head office there. Formerly a partner with law firm Herbert Smith Freehills in Hong Kong, Caen wanted to make a career change, and PraxisIFM was one of the very few trust companies that met her criteria. “I like that it is listed, it has great governance and management, stability, a highly experience team and the company is dedicated to the ongoing education of its people and of helping team members rise through the ranks and not leave the company.”
Asia – a world of opportunity
The Hong Kong operation, Caen explains, is dedicated to the provision of trust and corporate services, involving a mix of Hong Kong law, trusts and companies and also overseas companies and trusts to the extent that the firm can handle the regulatory requirements, so particularly BVI structures which she reports remain very popular in Asia. “We can run these out of the Hong Kong office so that the settlors and the beneficiaries benefit from our service in the same time zone and also language capabilities,” she reports.
Caen is enthused by the opportunities Asia offers. She cites a recent Economist article that indicated 30% of global growth to get the world out of the Covid-19 crisis is going to come from China alone, let alone the whole of ASEAN and Korea, Taiwan, Japan and so forth. “That will translate for sure to more and more trust, fiduciary and corporate services needed here in Asia,” she comments, “and I find the region exciting, dynamic, entrepreneurial, certainly a completely different atmosphere from most of the rest of the world. I have been here in Hong Kong for five years now, and my personal enthusiasm for the place and Asia only grows over time.”
A region in transition
Caen zooms in on the immense need for intergenerational wealth succession in Asia, for which she says PraxisIFM is ideally positioned to help. “We have the experience, and we understand the issues and can help guide families towards the optimal outcomes,” she reports. “I am particularly keen on the area of governance myself, because I was a lawyer and saw first-hand how badly things can go wrong, and how destructive family disputes can be. I saw what happens when patriarchs or matriarchs do not plan and act. We are also prepared to get involved to redress situations where things are already heading in the wrong direction, even in situations where the disputes between the family members are close to boiling over, as we can offer routes out of confrontation.”
Caen adds that the firm takes on founder trust structures with Chinese outbound IPOs, of which there are more and more. As of the beginning of August, she reports, there were 64 listings for the year on the Hong Kong main board versus 20 for the London Stock Exchange.
Working from the core outwards
“And on top of these services, we are simply very good at working with families to analyse their issues, their financial needs, work on wealth planning with them, and make sure that they adopt the right balance of capital growth investments versus income-driven investments, of making sure they have got the right advisors and asset managers in place to make that happen and making sure they avail themselves of the best expertise available.”
Caen explains that with her legal background, she errs on the side of caution, of always ensuring the clients completely understand what they might do, and why. “I think the relationship only works if on both sides everyone understands what the expectations are of all parties and what the rights and responsibilities are,” she says. “And communication is vital, as families tackle both their family issues and the economic issues, as we help them strive towards reconciling both harmoniously. It is absolutely vital for the founder generation to communicate properly and openly with their children, to ensure their hopes for the business are expressed later on, for example, if the founder wants those who will later inherit, and/or run the family business to maintain a community role offering employment locally, rather than simply targeting the highest financial returns from the business.”
Hong Kong – an ideal base for Asia
Caen is optimistic about the business potential for Hong Kong, noting that unless and until China relaxes currency controls there will continue to be a need for a halfway house. In fact, she notes that even today, some two-thirds of the money going in and out of China is still transited through Hong Kong. Moreover, the IPO market in Hong Kong, where there is a long and deep capital markets expertise, remains very active for Chinese companies seeking to establish valuations and also to raise fresh foreign capital.
“The fact that Hong Kong still has, particularly in the commercial side, an independent English-speaking judiciary is good for Hong Kong,” she comments. “The Greater Bay Area has been singled out by China as being a financial services hub, Hong Kong will, we believe, remain the clear and obvious financial centre for North Asia.”
Seeing the big picture
Caen comments that there are many areas in which the firm can help Asian clients, from helping them refocus their businesses for the future, helping with related corporate services, and also reinforcing their vision of the new world of transparency and compliance. “Families in this region who want to be part of the global economy and global lifestyle will need to be a lot more transparent and consider more seriously where they are basing themselves and their families.
“The pandemic is redefining people’s view of the world, as jetting around the world is not possible right now, or at least not advisable,” she observes. “While it is great that the children are getting educational opportunities in Europe and the US and so on, what happens if somebody suddenly shuts down their borders and are they going to end up with their 12-year-old stuck with no family somewhere. These are live issues facing many of our clients right now.”
A steady hand on the tiller
“So far,” she reports, “we found that just having one location in Asia has worked fine for us, we have 16 people in Hong Kong, mostly client-facing team members, and we can call on the HQ in Guernsey for a wide range of support services for us.”
Caen closes the discussion by reiterating how committed PraxisIFM is to the region and how expansive the firm plans to be to capture the immense growth potential ahead. “The pandemic,” she says, “should not obscure the growth trajectory of this region and its continuing diversification. In a world demanding greater transparency and greater organisation of individual, family and family business affairs, and greater coordination between these elements and family members, there is a huge opportunity for us ahead.”
Caen’s key priorities for PraxisIFM in Asia
Caen’s first priority as the new MD of PraxisIFM in Hong Kong is to reassure clients and team members how committed the business is to Hong Kong and the wider Asian markets. “We are here to stay,” she states, “we are not concerned about the future, we want to build the business with our existing and new clients and are committed to that vision.”
The second mission is to convey that message to the intermediaries, partners and contacts with which the firm works in the region. “It is very important for all intermediaries, the law firms, the private banks, accounting firms and others to know that there is stability, and to know that they are clients to us, that we are here to stay,” she says.
Her third priority is to express the firm’s services on a globalised view. “Global business has been pivoting towards Asia, and we see many opportunities in Asia for us to help our clients whether they are Asia based, or not, to expand and grow in this part of the world and to capture more of the prospects ahead in this region,” she reports.
Getting Personal with Joanna Caen
Caen was born in the UK and educated there for most of her formative years before heading off to university in New Zealand at the age of 18. She is a qualified solicitor in New Zealand and Hong Kong. She practised for 13 years and was previously a partner for international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. In July 2020, she made the career jump to be the PraxisIFM managing director in Hong Kong.
She has spent her entire career helping clients protect and grow their assets, whether through on or offshore corporate, trust or foundation structures. She also has experience and expertise in pre-IPO planning, pension and other retirement planning, and philanthropy.
Acting for individuals, families, single and multi-family offices, and intermediaries looking to assist their clients, Caen is familiar with most Asian jurisdictions, as well as those further afield which are also of interest to her clients including the USA, Canada, UK, Europe and the United Arab Emirates. She is presently Deputy Chair of the Society of Trust and Estate Planning in Hong Kong.
“Although I grew up in leafy Buckinghamshire near London,” she reports, “I decided that the University of Auckland in New Zealand was my next step after school. My parents were not wildly happy about that, to be honest, but New Zealand offered me the opportunities and lifestyle I wanted at a sensible cost, including owning and looking after a horse there, which was a great passion and hobby of mine. New Zealand is an excellent place to go as you can do what’s called a conjoint degree, so rather than just double major you end up with two bachelor degrees but only requiring one year’s extra study after the main course.”
Her career really blossomed when she rather stumbled into being a private client lawyer. “It suited me really well,” she reports, “as it offered me the chance to work with individuals and families and helping real people with real issues. The other career highlight was getting the opportunity to come up to Hong Kong in 2015 and work for Herbert Smith Freehills, and then becoming a partner at the firm. Coming out of New Zealand and suddenly being exposed to the incredible dynamism of Asia was fantastic.”
Caen is single and looks after her mongrel Hong Kong dog, who during the video call had, rather surprisingly Caen reports, managed to keep quiet throughout. “She does not usually behave quite as well as this,” Caen says, jovially.
Caen’s hobbies include hiking, yoga, exploring Hong Kong, and interests as diverse as the Cantonese opera, Chinese art galleries, and getting to know all the facets of Hong Kong. “Of course, some of those interests are somewhat on hold for now,” she comments, “but I have fingers crossed as we all do that life might soon return to some normality.”
Managing Director at PraxisIFM
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