BVI Dominates by Volume of New Offshore Company Incorporations

According to a report from Appleby Global, one of the world’s largest providers of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services. the British Virgin Islands jurisdiction “continues to dominate” by the volume of new offshore company registrations, with a six-fold lead over the Cayman Islands, which is the nearest comparator of the BVI.

The Group’s latest On the Register Report is devoted to the analysis of company incorporations in the British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Crown Dependencies, Mauritius and Seychelles, and how activity in these offshore jurisdictions compares to financial centres such as the UK and Hong Kong. 

Appleby stated in the release that the number of new offshore company registrations decreased both in the BVI and the Cayman Islands in the second half of 2012, with a 12% drop to 29,225 new company registrations in the British Virgin Islands, and 13% drop to 4,176 new registrations in the Cayman Islands. Appleby reported an overall decrease of 3.6% in company incorporation activity in the major offshore markets in the second half of 2012, indicating the impact of uncertain global economic conditions on the majority of the offshore markets.

By words of Farah Ballands, the partner and global head of fiduciary & administration services at Appleby, “There are signs that 2013 will be a watershed year in terms of seeing a universal return to pre-2009 activity levels across the offshore jurisdictions.”