Hylant is targeting further captive expansion in Europe this year, likely to be built on strategic partnerships in key domiciles such as Guernsey, Luxembourg and Malta.

Anne Marie Towle, CEO of Hylant Global Captive Solutions, and senior consultant Alex Gedge discussed their observations of, and plans for, the European market on a GCP Short episode released on 15 March.

Towle joined Hylant in September 2019 to build its captive practice and hired London-based Gedge in June 2021.

Towle visited London in January, saying on the Global Captive Podcast that raising awareness of the Hylant brand in the United Kingdom and Europe was a focus for the privately held firm this year.

“We call ourselves and we are a global captive practice,” Towle said.

“We work with companies all around the globe and we want to be able to have options all around the globe for our clients. We are, as people would call, domicile neutral.

“We are captive managers, we are captive consultants, and we want to go and be available in the domiciles where our clients need to be, whether it’s for priority reasons, be in their home domicile or other rationale for why people select a domicile.

“Our company is investing in our specialty divisions, which includes Global Captive Solutions, and we have a strategy to expand here in Europe and want to be able to have those domiciles such as a Guernsey, Luxembourg and Malta.”

While Luxembourg and Guernsey have led the way in new formation numbers in recent years, there is also a growing movement for continental European corporates to consider using their home country as a captive domicile.

France finally passed captive legislation at the end of 2022, while there is also a small movement in Italy to re-domesticate some captives.

The UK government is currently considering proposals to establish a captive framework, while Lloyd’s of London continues to move forward with its Captive Syndicate project and could have a pilot running this year.

Gedge said that while such initiatives are welcomed and ultimately good for spreading the captive concept, the established captive centres will remain key locations.

“We’ve done a lot of work speaking to the UK and obviously we’ve seen the Lloyd’s proposition looking at being able to have captives over here in London and there’s a huge amount of potential there,” Gedge said.

“But there is always going be a place for the Malta’s, the Guernsey’s, these specialist areas where you’ve got all the people who know what they’re doing.

“They know how to do captives. They are always ahead of the curve with responding to new changes, things like cell legislation coming in and ILS legislation. These are always going to be leading the curve and there will always be a place for them.”

Hylant has already worked with European companies that have significant American operations on setting up captives in the United States.

“US domiciles are phenomenal with what they do and how they do it,” Towle added.

“There’s a lot of great options in the States, and so people are selecting US domiciles because they’re already subject to US tax.

“You can set up your captive sometimes more cost efficiently in the States than you can here in some of the European domiciles. There have been situations where they want to move quickly and the timetable can be 30 days or less in the US and that can be instrumental.”

Listen to the full interview with Anne Marie Towle and Alex Gedge here or on any podcast app. Just search for the ‘Global Captive Podcast’.