HEIMDALL MAURITIUS: Security, Reliability, and Certainty. Trust Mauritius

South Africans are faced with growing challenges as political instability, economic uncertainty, and national issues around power supply, unemployment, and inflation continue to blight those who work hard and follow ambitions for a stronger future. Exacerbated by the pandemic, civil unrest, flooding, and now an international crisis in Ukraine, the economy sits on a knife edge. The fragility experienced since 2009 has left many concerned. How can you protect your business? Your estate, your wealth? Care for future generations? Secure your assets? Relying solely on South Africa is now ill-considered. More and more, individuals and businesses are searching for opportunities to spread risk and utilise safer, reliable, international structures.

In 2018, President Ramaphosa labelled South Africa as a “land of untold opportunity”, hoping to encourage international investment. And there has been success. Pockets of the country have been considerably prosperous – SA is now considered one of the world’s premier BPO destinations, the software and tech space is world-leading, payments and fintech are flourishing sectors. But underlying inexorable problems remain, and offshoring of assets and investments is becoming more popular. As well as human capital flight (estimated at around one million between 2015 and 2020), high net worth individuals, family offices, corporate headquarters, and asset managers are busy searching for safe havens.

Thankfully, Heimdall – a leading private client and corporate services organisation, supporting clients with internationalisation – is offering a tailored solution. Headed by South Africans with deep knowledge of financial services and corporate and personal structures, this is a business providing light for those in need of fresh illumination.

BUSINESS OF BUSINESSES

In sunny Mauritius, a global financial centre, Executive Director Jan Wandrag leads Heimdall, a young company with big appeal.

“At our core, we are a business of businesses,” he tells Enterprise Africa. “We see so many diverse businesses and we try to link them together as much as possible and through the work we do, we get involved in a range of different activities. It’s exciting, I love everything about it.”

An entrepreneur and financial services veteran – holding senior positions across a number of corporates and multinationals, and an expert in the management of private client and corporate affairs – Wandrag was, in 2009, one of the youngest directors on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange at just 29.

His journey has seen him exposed to numerous global markets and sectors, but he became frustrated with the level of service when it came to establishing a base for international exposure. “The service delivery and fee structures are all outmoded,” he says. “We reconfigured the business and changed the structure. We ask reasonable rates for our services based on the actual work we do and the complexity of that work, rather than hourly or transactionally, and we place quality service delivery above all.”

Right now, because of the nature of the economic environment in South Africa, Heimdall is focussed on that market for growth.

“A lot of our team are South African, we speak Afrikaans, and we understand the South African business environment,” Wandrag highlights, adding that the company has three key offerings.

“We help high net worth individuals, corporates, and institutional investors to create vehicles with a specific focus on Mauritius as the platform for their business and investments,” he says. “That doesn’t always mean that Mauritius is the destination of their business, or the location where they invest, but it acts as a platform for investments across the African continent – both flowing into Africa and from Africa to the rest of the world.”

Heimdall can tailor new companies and trusts, and everything required to facilitate success, according to the needs of a client. Removing paperwork and lengthy administrative chores, Heimdall simplifies the process of what can seem daunting.

“The second component of our business – where we have a current focus on South Africa – involves helping companies to restructure by looking at their current shareholding and operations, especially with international expansion in mind. A number of businesses and individuals are only 100% focussed on South Africa and, with our partners, we help them to reconfigure their affairs on the South African side with international growth as a real possibility.”

He highlights the country’s obstacles as drivers of this arm. “It does create a level of uncertainty for a large number of individuals and businesses. There are power issues and businesses have implemented back up power supplies. But now, with fuel costs at high levels, it is becoming very expensive to do business if you’re in manufacturing or other similar industries. SMEs in particular are feeling this effect.”

The third element of the business involves the boots on the ground in Mauritius. Heimdall can quickly and effectively organise truly international structures for smooth cross-border transitions both financially and personally.

“We are not tax or legal advisors – we provide services that these businesses need at international level to be considered truly Mauritian,” states Wandrag. “That includes traditional services where we would act as directors and trustees and we would provide accounting and tax administration services, and we also provide general secretarial services, opening bank and investment accounts. We also help to administer those accounts on an ongoing basis, processing payments and managing transactions.”

PHENOMENAL GROWTH

The confidence built with clients, and the knowledge and experience held within the company, have allowed Heimdall to grow significantly. Just five years ago, the company was only a small group. Today, 15 experts will soon be joined by five new recruits as the company expands. “Growth has been phenomenal,” smiles Wandrag. “We are expecting to increase our headcount even more significantly before May.”

There is competition in the industry. Many companies want to entice organisations, high net worth individuals, and families to part with their hard-earned wealth, hoping to make commission or take a fee. But Heimdall is different. The management of the company is hands on. Each has practical experience of business management and can act as an extension of the existing set up, rather than a distant outsourced contractor.

“We go a step further. We are not traditional non-executive directors who go through a rubber-stamping exercise, fulfilling a compliance requirement rather than anything else. We have been around the block and we have experiences which have taught us a lot of lessons. We aim to use our knowledge and experience to add true value to clients businesses as executive directors, becoming as engaged in a clients affairs – business or investment or both – as we possibly can to help them grow,” Wandrag says.

Heimdall is proactive and forward-thinking. Typically, competitors have been reactive, welcoming clients as and when they need support rather than going out and offering advice and assistance before help is required. It’s a brand building strategy for the longer-term and is more sustainable than relying only on external factors. Wandrag is keen on driving business rather than sitting on the side-lines.

By building relationships with relevant organisations, including financial advisors and wealth management businesses, Heimdall has been able to position its service portfolio in front of appropriate clientele while receiving the backing of industry professionals.

“We are reasonably new and we recognise the value the technology,” emphasises Wandrag. “We have started implementing systems to bring our part in the industry into 2023 through the use of technology, bringing clients assistance on as many levels as possible while increasing the speed at which we do things. We also want to make our clients lives as easy as possible when they work with us.”

Still in development, new digital platforms, systems, and applications will soon allow clients to transact and communicate with ease as they move from South Africa into global markets. “We want to revolutionise the way technology is used in the industry by giving them better access to as many elements as possible that the clients will need as part of their business and investment offering,” suggests Wandrag.

SYMBIOSIS, SYNERGY

By giving clients the ability to invest and do business internationally, Heimdall is an accelerator, and this is not something that can be done at arm’s length. There must be a clear understanding of not only the markets in which companies can grow, but also the companies and funds themselves so that appropriate decisions can be taken to maximise ROI. In today’s nervy global political climate, where lines of power are shifting and developing markets are buoyant, knowledge is the key and every penny is under the spotlight.

“We want to get as involved in our client’s business as we possible can. We try to figure out what their goals are, what their exit strategy is, what their growth plan is, who could buy the business – we do a lot of matchmaking and that is something which is not traditionally done by businesses in our industry. We want synergy where we can add real value – there must be a natural symbiosis,” says Wandrag.

Interestingly, the Covid-19 pandemic helped Heimdall to grow. As many companies were forced to adjust and juggle new ways of working, there was a demand for sound advice and spreading of risk with many fearful of what could happen if the worst case scenario was occur. Heads of family offices looked to Mauritius as a highly secure international destination for funds, and Heimdall – already engineered to work remotely – was on hand.

“It worked out very well for our business model. Because of the way that Mauritius is prone to cyclones causing disruptions in the way that we work, our business model has always been to prepare for worst-case scenarios,” says Wandrag. “People may be stuck at home, people may be stuck elsewhere – we’ve worked liked that for a long time. Everyone has a laptop, we all work on a decentralised network but with strong security, and most of our work happens in the cloud. We started working remotely as part of our plan to internationalise. The pandemic did not change the way that we intended to work.”

He adds that the speed of communication was vastly improved. No longer was there a need to fly out to South Africa or elsewhere. The norm was online chat, and people – even in big, slow corporates – changed the way they worked.

“It has created a shift in mindset and a lot of people have started to realise that they can’t do business the way we have historically. They are now a lot more open and receptive to the ideas we have in regards to their personal ownership of companies. Clients have realised that unforeseen things can happen at any time, and you have to be more prepared. There was a big realisation that there are better ways to structure your own holdings as well as the business,” says Wandrag.

In the future, the expectation is that Heimdall will boom. As demand for international exposure grows in South African organisations, and as interest in business on the African continent grows from international investors, the market is wide open for a proven company with a vast range of services.

Further diversifying the company’s service portfolio will happen over the next five years, and growth of the markets – following Heimdall’s more aggressive push for business development – will see doors open up quickly.

“We are focussed on South Africa for now. And, while we all love South Africa, there is the potential for a lot to go seriously wrong there and so we must spread our risk. Our main focus has been on corporates and entrepreneurial clients. That will change as the team expands and as we gain more clients and become more like a manager of funds.

“We don’t anticipate the growth to stop at any stage. Unfortunately, the South African situation is terrible and that creates a huge amount of opportunity for us which we don’t see going away any time soon.”

With Mauritius recognised as a hot investment and business location, and a preferential international destination for tax purposes, perhaps now is the time to look to the Indian Ocean for a new island of opportunity. Political, social, and economic stability provide investors with certainty, and today that is sorely needed.

“We are different,” concludes Wandrag. “We can help on different levels. Our location in Mauritius is part of our success. It has a lot going for it and will continue on an upwards trajectory that has been realised by the country over the past 25 years.”