Doing Business Internationally: Luxembourg

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Christy: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, "Doing Business Internationally: Luxembourg." My name is Christy DeMaio Ziegler, and I will be your moderator. Please join me in welcoming our host, Helena Ledic, an associate general counsel for CSC in the Chicago office. Helena.

Helena: Thank you so much, Christy. Hello, everyone. I am delighted to introduce my colleagues today from Luxembourg. First, I'd like to introduce you to David Sarfas, the Managing Director for CSC in Luxembourg.

David: Hello.

Helena: Next will be FX Goossens, the Head of Corporate Legal Solutions in Luxembourg.

Francois-Xavier: Hello.

Helena: And then finally, Salvatore Rosato, the Head of Capital Markets in Luxembourg for CSC.

Rosato: Hello, everyone.

Helena: So our agenda for today's program for doing business internationally in Luxembourg is first we'll talk a little bit about CSC. And then we'll get into that very important question and answer of why Luxembourg. We'll go into foreign investments in Luxembourg, that domestic or foreign status, what to know about setting or I should say what to know about doing business in Luxembourg, and how CSC can help.

For more than 120 years CSC has been the partner of choice for companies around the globe. We're trusted to handle everything from incorporating a company through maintaining compliance to doing corporate transaction work, protecting digital assets from the threats of the online world, and everything in between. We offer the solutions and technology that keep businesses running in the background, allowing clients to focus on the important work of growing their business.

CSC has offices and capabilities in more than 140 jurisdictions across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. We're a global company capable of doing business wherever our clients are, and we accomplish that by employing local experts in every business we serve.

First, a few facts about Luxembourg. Luxembourg is the largest investment fund center in Europe and the second-largest in the world after the U.S., with 5.5 trillion AUM in investment funds. It's about the size of Rhode Island, and it's neighbored by Belgium, France, and Germany. In fact, 70% of the workforce are cross-border employees from those countries. There are three official languages in Luxembourg — Luxembourgish, French, and German. But English is also widely spoken, and 45% of the population speaks three or more languages. And Luxembourg has got the highest GDP per capita in the world. In 2021, it was over 135,000 U.S. dollars.

So now let's hear from our Luxembourg experts of why Luxembourg. David, why don't you talk to us first?

David: Thanks, Helena. I think, as you said, with more than $5.5 trillion (sic) in net assets under management, Luxembourg is the largest investment fund center in Europe and of course the second-largest in the world after the United States of America. But also it's the largest global distribution center for investment funds, with funds offered in more than 70 countries around the world.

Luxembourg investment funds have a dominant share in both the retail and institutional marketplace in Europe, and they are the vehicle of choice in many parts of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Luxembourg is also a major center for alternative asset classes, with more than 850 billion dollars, I'm sorry euros of assets managed by alternative fund managers.

So if you take a step back and you think about this, how did Luxembourg build these strong positions in the global investment fund industry, I think it revolves around three principal concepts — international orientation, excellence, and stability. Luxembourg is a founding member of the European Union. It's also a member of all the principal international organizations. The country's strategic location at the heart of Europe and its traditional openness towards cross-border integration established . . . it established itself very early as a major international financial center.

Furthermore, the AAA-rated economy, Luxembourg has a sound public finance framework and is very politically stable. Its social stability based on the culture of consensus makes it a great place to work and do business, and the high quality of living makes it a very pleasant place to live.

The backdrop to all this has over the decades attracted thousands of investment firms and service providers, who collectively contribute unrivaled knowledge and expertise to the global investment industry players, whether they operate from Luxembourg or not.

Francois-Xavier, what would you say about this?

Francois-Xavier: Yeah, indeed. Thanks, David. So when it comes to corporate, I couldn't agree more with David. Luxembourg is the European hub for large corporate groups with their headquarters or treasury center based in Luxembourg. We also do have quite a lot of listed identities, like for instance ArcelorMittal. They do have their European head office based in Luxembourg. And there are many more examples. On the private wealth side, the Lux legal regime is welcoming for family offices because of our laws that are into force that offers quite a lot of flexibility for this kind of structure.

What are the main reasons for that? I do see three main reasons. The first one is the presence of large international banking groups from all around the globe, from Europe, North America, Asia, and Latin America. And they offer full scope of services to their clients. It actually helps in the sense that in case the client has already an existing relationship somewhere else in the world, they can actually use their preferred bank in Luxembourg, which can definitely speed up the process when it comes to bank account opening for instance.

Perhaps one side note on the banking ecosystem we do have in Luxembourg is Luxembourg is also welcoming e-money financial institutions, which is slightly different to the standard banks that we are all working with. E-money financial institutions are not licensed by the Luxembourg financial regulator, meaning that they can be a bit more flexible in the way they are onboarding new clients. So I think it already happened to all of us when we are in the time pressure for a closing and we do not have enough time to open a bank account with a standard bank, those e-money financial institutions might be an alternative that can tremendously help in case of time pressure.

The second reason I do see is that Luxembourg offers, as David mentioned, a stable political regime, and the tax treatment of existing structures and structures to be implemented is quite predictable in the sense that because of the stability that we do have, the tax treatment of a structure can be predicted quite accurately. So the government will never take any sort of or adopt any sort of new law with any retroactive profession, and that helps in terms of predictability when it comes to tax treatment.

And the third reason I do see is, and I think Helena you briefly touched on that, Luxembourg is really at the heart of Europe, meaning that we do have colleagues from all over the world and speaking obviously English, German, French, and many other languages, including Chinese for Chinese clients at CSC. And it gives us a competitive advantage because all clients can actually be served and communicate with us in their native language, and that tremendously helps as we are here to support them on a day-to-day basis.

So those are the three main reasons why Luxembourg is a very attractive place for investors. Salvatore, I do not know if you have anything to add from a capital market perspective.

Salvatore: Sure. And thank you, FX. At this point of the webinar, yeah, I also would like to share some words on my business. I would like actually to spend and explain why there is a leadership position of Luxembourg also within the entire European capital markets.

Actually, if we look at its number of transactions, the volumes of transaction, the number of issuing entities, Luxembourg is positioning itself with no doubt as a leading place for the domiciliation and administration of the SPV issuing the securities. But how can this be explained?

Well, the primary reasons for that are in part those supporting also the funds and corporate success, such as having an investor friendly market, a responsive regulator, and also other reasons related merely to the debt market, such as the leadership position of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange in Europe, and finally the combination of high protection and flexibility offered by the Luxembourg Securitization Law.

Helena: So let's talk now a little bit about what we need to know about doing business in Luxembourg. And David, we got a question that tees up this slide over here, that came into the Q&A. Somebody wants to know, "What is the Luxembourg fund toolbox?" Can you talk about that?

David: Absolutely, great. That's a great question. Thank you. I think just before I go into trying to answer that question, I think what's important to understand is that the strength of the fund structures in Luxembourg is primarily built on three pillars. And I'd say those three pillars are UCITS, which really means undertaking of collective investments in transferable securities, AIFs, which are alternative investment funds, and the final one is RI, which is responsible investing.

So if you step back and look at UCITS, they're considered to be the best in class for when it comes to investor protection. It really is liquid asset vehicles, and they're distributed publicly to retail investors across Europe.

There are different types of AIFs or alternative investment funds. You have the FCPs, fonds commun de placement in French, which are managed by a Luxembourg management company. You have SICAVs and SICAFs, which are in French société d'investissement à capital variable, but really are open and closed-ended investment companies. And you have and the types of asset classes that you deal with in the AIFs are primarily private equity, real estate, but also hedge, debt, and infrastructure.

So if you look at the unit, if you think about the collected investment schemes, you have the UCI Part II funds, and I think what I'll do is I'll kind of talk a little bit about the different types of funds, which is really the answer to the toolbox.

So the UCI Part II funds are investment funds that invest in all types of assets. They can be sold to all types of investors. And Part II funds, that have an EU AIFM management company could market their shares, units, or partnerships interests via a specific passport to qualified investors across all Europe.

The SIFs, which are specialized investment funds, also deal with all types of assets. They're sold primarily to qualified investors, and you have the same feature where you can distribute to qualified investors across all Europe if, of course, you have an EU AIFM.

Then we go into the SICARs, which are the investment companies for risk capital. There are about 350 SICARs in Luxembourg right now. They're really designed for private equity and venture capital funds. They're sold to qualified investors. You have the same feature where you can distribute all over Europe if you are using an EU AIFM.

One of the big investment types of structures are the RAIFs, which are Luxembourg reserved alternative investment funds. There's over a little bit more than 2,000 of those in Luxembourg currently. You have all types of assets that not subject to CSSF approval, the CSSF being the local regulator here. But they must appoint an external AIFM. And if the AIFM is domiciled in the EU, you can sell to qualified investors all over the European Union.

There are other types of features and other types of fund structures. The next one I would like to talk about is the ELTIF, the European Long Term Investment Fund. So that's the Pan-European regime for AIFs, allowing investors to put money into companies and/or projects that really need long-term capital. I won't go into the details because it can get relatively sophisticated and it's probably not the object of our conversation today.

You also had the EuVECA, which is the European Venture Capital Fund, but that just provides a whole framework for VC funds, and you have specific requirements for investments. But you should just be aware that exists.

There's also the European Social Entrepreneurship Funds, the EuSEFs, which is really a framework for social entrepreneurship and has very specific requirements.

I think one of the structures I haven't talked about, which is very important, are the SLPs, the Special Limited Partnerships. So for those of you who are interested, you'll probably hear about SCSp. There's over 8,000 of SCSps all over Europe and primarily in Luxembourg of course. But that's a very specific type of structure with very large contractual flexibility.

So just to give you a little bit of highlights, you can set this up in less than between two and four weeks. There's no prior regulatory approval. You have unregulated alternative investment fund under the AIFM Directive. You have unlimited number of investors. The manager should typically be regulated when the AUM is above €500 million for closed-ended funds or €100 million for open-ended funds. These SLPs can invest any type of assets, equities, participations, bonds, loans, artwork, cars, different types of hedge strategies, liquid or illiquid instruments, real estate, private equity, etc. No depository bank is required in this particular instance. No audit required. So it's a very, very I would say flexible feature.

And then, of course, you have the final pillar that I was talking about, which is really the responsible investing. So there's a lot of ESG metrics of course in Europe, and there's full compliance with the SFDR, which is the Sustainable Financial Disclosure Regulation. And I think Europe in general, but Luxembourg in particular is at the forefront of all the ESG metrics. So there's a lot of opportunity here.

That said, I want to make sure that Francois-Xavier has time to talk to us about SPVs, which is equally as interesting and beneficial for the people who are listening today.

Francois-Xavier: Yeah. Thank you very much, David. So for special purposes vehicles, and so-called SPVs, I think we briefly touched upon the predictable tax treatment that's Luxembourg is offering, and this is seen by the investors that are already investing through Luxembourg as a competitive advantage. I think it might be worth to spend a bit of time on the legal structures that we do see in Luxembourg and perhaps trying to demonstrate that they are perhaps more flexible than the ones that we can find in other European countries.

So in Luxembourg, we do have three main entity types, the first one being the public limited liability companies, so-called SAs, private limited liability companies, SARLs, and limited partnerships. What is important to note is we do have actually two categories. The first one is composed by the SA and the SARLs, and the second one is composed by the limited partnerships.

And it's quite interesting to see that the way the legal regime is structured in Luxembourg can accommodate both investors from civil law countries, but as well as investors coming from common law jurisdictions because the limited partnership is very close to the U.S./UK partnership in the way they are formed and incorporated. So for instance, the only constituent document that we do have for limited partnership in Luxembourg is an agreement that is signed by the investors under private seal, and this is very, very close or even perhaps similar to what we do see in the UK and the U.S. And it gives obviously a bit of comfort to UK and US investors as they find a very familiar legal environment using limited partnerships.

On the other end, for SAs and SARLs, those types of entities are a bit less flexible than the limited partnerships. But still, if you compare with Germany, Ireland, and France for instance, the Luxembourg legal regime remains much more flexible in the sense that, for instance, in Belgium, only taking that example, as soon as you do have an SA, so i.e. a public limited liability company, you need to have an auditor appointed, which is not necessarily the case in Luxembourg and certainly not for SARLs.

So that's why I think Luxembourg is the right place for investors even if they are coming from the common law countries or civil law countries. And I think that's something quite interesting to note about Luxembourg regime. So back to you Helena.

Helena: So David, tell us a little bit about how Luxembourg became the leading European domicile for the accredited investment funds. How did that happen?

David: I think the answer here is really in those three pillars really. The fact that Luxembourg had a first-mover advantage to servicing accredited vehicles and then, of course, the UCITs, the evolution of I'd say of those vehicles to what they are now to create what is that Luxembourg fund toolbox just has made it the longest lasting kind of jurisdiction and the oldest jurisdiction in Europe in which you find all these vehicles. So everyone is acclimated to the environment. And, of course, you have the cottage industry in which we're in, which is really all the ancillary services that serve the industry to ensure that it can operate and function well, which is extremely developed here. And I think that's the real reason.

Helena: Thank you, David. And now let's have FX tell us a little bit about corporate and PE structures.

Francois-Xavier: Thank you, Helena. I think what we do see here is a typical private equity structure in Luxembourg. Obviously, on purpose, I put on the top of the chart a U.S. PLC or LLC. And then I'm going to start focusing first on the left side of the org chart. And it's actually depicting a situation where the top U.S. company is holding 10% of a Luxembourg entity, which is in its turn is holding 100% of a sub Lux Co, holding directly the assets.

So what's important to note is actually the shareholding percentage. So 10% is held by the U.S. entity. It's actually important to know that for the participation exemption that we perhaps all know about, because on the left side of the chart, we do have another scenario, which is in IOB, where it looks very similar, except the participation percentage that we do have between the U.S. [inaudible 00:21:53] and the Lux Co B, where the U.S. entity is holding 5% only. Then what is important to look at is the total value of the assets. If it's above or below a certain threshold, which is actually €1.2 million or the equivalent in dollars.

So this is typically a private equity structure that we do often see here in Luxembourg for a very simple reason. It's tax efficient when the asset starts distributing dividends, for instance, or repatriating cash up the chain.

I don't know if there is any question on that one, Helena.

Helena: Well, actually, FX, it's a very good thing that you brought that up. Someone came in through the Q&A, the questions, and they wanted to know a little bit more. Could you explain a little bit more about the participation exemption?

Francois-Xavier: Yeah. That's exactly and thanks, Helena. So a very good question. This is actually the purpose of this slide.

Assuming that all the conditions that are in the slide, so the percentage of shareholding that needs to be 5% to 10% percent, or if it's below 10%, the total value of the investment has to be equal to €1.2 million or the equivalent in dollars. The participation exemption will actually allow to repatriate cash or to distribute dividends from the assets up to the U.S. company free of tax, assuming that this asset is held for a certain period of time, which would be at minimum 12%. This is the purpose of the participation exemption that we often see here in Luxembourg. And I think we do have that often with the U.S. companies on top.

Helena: So now FX is going to take us through the comparisons and the differences between the two main structures in Luxembourg — the public limited companies and then the limited liability companies.

Francois-Xavier: Yeah. Thank you, Helena. This slide can actually be tied up with the previous one, where we depicted the typical PE structure. So in the org chart that we just discussed together, the Luxembourg entities I didn't mention anything about their legal form. They can either be public limited companies, SAs, or limited liability companies, SARLs. So that's important to know. So the participation exemption can work with both of those types of Luxembourg entities.

So when it comes to incorporation, it's the same requirements that need to be fulfilled. So we need to have notarial deeds enacting the articles of association of either an SA or SARL. So I'm not going to spend too much time on that one. SAs and SARLs, they do have both a legal personality, which is distinct from the partnership.

When it comes to capital and the share capital that needs to be subscribed and paid at the time of the incorporation, there is a difference between the SA and the SARL. So for an SA, for instance, we need to have a minimum share capital of €30,000 or the equivalent in dollars, and it has to be paid up at least 25% at the time of the notarial deed, i.e., the incorporation deed. For SARLs, it's a bit more flexible in the sense that the amount that is required to incorporate a SARL in Luxembourg is €12,000, and it has to be fully paid up at the time of the setup of the company.

For SAs and perhaps this is the right moment to emphasize that we are using SAs for large groups, in the sense that we can go between 1 and 100 shareholders for an SA, which as you can imagine, 100 shareholders, it's already a quite significant number if we are excluding listed entities. For SARLs, it started from one as well, but I've rarely seen a SARL with more than let's say 10 or 15 shareholders. So that's one of the big differences that we do see in terms of number of shareholders between SAs and SARLs.

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The management body, it's actually a board that are managing the two types of entities. For SAs, it has to be a minimum of three board members. It can only be one in case there's one shareholder for an SA. And for a SARL, it can be minimum one shareholder.

The audit is mandatory for an SA and not mandatory for an SARL. However, if the shareholders decide to appoint an auditor to certify and to testify that the financial statements are reflecting the financial situation of the company, they can do it of course, but it's not mandatory. And this is tying it back to the discussions around flexibility that we do have in Luxembourg.

And finally, on the annual accounts, both of those entities need to file their annual accounts once a year, which is actually six months after the closing of the financial year.

So this is very high level the main differences that we do see between SAs and SARLs. I didn't spend too much time on the limited partnerships, but it is very, very similar to UK and U.S. limited partnerships. So I think it's perhaps a bit more interesting for the audience to know a bit more about SAs and SARLs.

Helena: So let me ask you, FX. You did mention something about substance. Can you explain a little bit more about that?

Francois-Xavier: Absolutely. Substance, let me think how I can define substance because you will never find in any sort of law in Luxembourg a reference to substance. The entire concept means that any sort of Luxembourg entity needs to have a certain footprint here in the country, in the sense that the idea is to avoid that any sort of foreign tax authority can challenge the nationality of the Luxembourg entity. So there were many scandals that were published in the press the last few weeks, months, or even years, and they were all about and directly linked to substance.

So we do need to have for each and every Luxembourg entity a certain level of substance, which actually means the following. If you want to be on the safe side and not being challenged by foreign tax authorities saying, "Hey, guys, this is not a Luxembourg entity, it is actually a German entity," so if you want to avoid this kind of situation, you need to make sure that certain criteria are met, the first one being the composition of the board of manager/director. It's considered as safe to have at least 50% of the board members being either Luxembourgish residents or professionally residing in Luxembourg.

Then another criteria that tax authorities will look at is the frequency of meetings that are physically held in Luxembourg. So what is common practice is the following. That the board meeting that is going to be called for the annual accounts approval, we just discussed a minute ago, typically this one would require a physical board meeting in Luxembourg as well as any sort of strategic decision. So let's imagine that a Luxembourg entity is about to take the decision about an investment. It's highly advisable that all the board members, even coming from the U.S. or from anywhere around the globe, will come to Luxembourg to hold that board meeting.

Another criteria, that is very strong by the way, is making sure that the Luxembourg entity has an office here in Luxembourg, either buying an office, which is a situation that we do not often see, or renting an office. This is actually linked to another criteria, which is having somebody on the payroll. So CSC, for instance, is offering that option. So we are servicing holding entities mainly, but even holding entities can be challenged and their nationality can also be challenged, meaning that we can offer to a client that a few employees or even a single employee can spend a certain amount of time on their file and therefore being on their payroll. This is an element that the tax authorities are looking at to assess if there's enough substance here in Luxembourg.

I kept it very high level. There are a lot of [inaudible 00:31:30] and court decisions around that. But I think those are the main points around substance if we do not want to be challenged by foreign tax authorities around the nationality of the of the Luxembourg entity. Did that answer the question?

Helena: Well, thank you. Yes, that did. Thank you. Thank you, FX.

Francois-Xavier: You're welcome.

Helena: So now we're going to be hearing from Salvatore about how or why Luxembourg is attractive as a jurisdiction for debt capital markets and securitization.

Salvatore: Thanks much, Helena, for introducing this central topic. Well, as mentioned earlier, Luxembourg is becoming more and more the go-to jurisdiction for the domiciliation and administration of European SPVs used for issuance of debt securities. I will try now to clarify the benefits of setting up a DCM structure in Luxembourg. And for the sake of simplification, let me start with some commonalities.

Same as funds and the corporate business, also Luxembourg capital markets benefit from a politically stable country with very low public debt. It's a multilingual environment, and the fact that it is the most multilingual country in Europe, which can not only streamline relations with service providers, advisors, and public administration, but also can allow the financial sector regulator to accept official documentation in English, French, or German language.

Another benefit is also the presence of a responsive regulator, a leading stock exchange, and the responsive financial sector supervisory authority, which is proven, for instance, in dealing with the complex approval process of [offering circulars 00:33:32] and also the complex listing of public securities.

It is worth to mention also the well-established ecosystem of post-trading service providers covering all aspects of collateral management, including clearing , settlement, custody, and asset services.

Moving on, among its flagships Luxembourg also counts the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, which is the European leading venue for public debt listing and the first and leading platform for sustainable security on the globe.

But finally, and last but not least, I believe that our common crown jewel is represented by our securitization law. In fact, by setting up a securitization platform in Luxembourg, all our clients, investors, and arrangers can benefit of most likely the best combination of protection and flexibility present in Europe and take finally advantage of a full range of options for structuring deals. For instance, investors have the possibility in Luxembourg to invest in a wide range of asset classes by using multi-compartments and at the same time obtaining high level of risk protection thanks to some specific clauses, which are called the limited recourse, the non-petition, and the refinancing, which are provided directly by the securitization law, and as a consequence may benefit of the highest degree of enforceability.

Helena: So Salvatore, you mentioned that the securitization law in Luxembourg is the crown jewel. Can you tell our audience a little bit about the different asset classes that can be securitized in Luxembourg?

Salvatore: Of course, and a good question again, Helena. The Luxembourg law allows the securitization of many types of assets, risks, revenue, and activities, and makes securitization accessible to all types of investors, institutional or individual. It is, in fact, allowed to securitize an extremely wide range of assets, such as securities including shares, loans, subordinated or unsubordinated bonds by performing the so-called repackaging, then risks linked to debt, so-called synthetics securitization, movable or removable properties, trade receivables and supply chain finance, prime residential mortgages called RMBS, auto lease, credit cards, infrastructure and project finance, Islamic financing, non-performing loans, and finally in general any activity that has a certain value or future income.

Helena: So now that you described those, can you explain a little bit about how you see the Luxembourg securitization law within the larger European context? How does it fit in?

Salvatore: Yeah, definitely, that's another great question, Helena. Well, in my opinion, the Luxembourg securitization law may offer to investors and arrangers the right combination of flexibility and protection in structuring securitization platforms in Europe. The law was adopted in 2004 and has been recently modernized in March of last year. And the last changes, including the famous allowance of the active management of repackaged debt and the opening to new forms of funding have increased even further the country's investor toolkit, which was already very competitive in the past, and in my view will definitely represent an additional boost to the local securitization market for the future.

Helena: Now that we've learned from our Luxembourg experts, David, FX, and Salvatore, about why Luxembourg, the foreign investment, and what to know about doing business in Luxembourg, let's now talk about how CSC can help you. So FX, can you get us started off about CSC in Luxembourg and tell us about the corporate services that CSC offers?

Francois-Xavier: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Helena. So CSC in Luxembourg can be seen as a one-stop shop. So we can support our clients during the entire life cycle of the company actually, so since the incorporation, that we briefly discussed earlier during this webinar, till the liquidation and the radiation of the company within the Luxembourg trade register. So we are here at each and every step of the incorporation, during the life cycle, annual accounts approval, investments, exits, and liquidation.

So we are supporting our clients at the first phase, which is the entity incorporation, by coordinating with the tax advisor, coordinating with notaries, reviewing articles of association, and making sure that the company is effectively incorporated in Luxembourg and that the notarial deed is published in the Luxembourg Official Gazette.

We are supporting our clients by providing accounting services to make sure that at any time they are in good standing and fully compliant with the legal and regulatory framework that we do have here in Luxembourg. So it starts by approving the annual accounts once a year, supporting them in any sort of payroll activity, or making sure that we are taking care of cash management by dealing with the banks and making sure that the annual accounts are audited in case it's either mandatory or contractually required, it depends on the needs of the client.

And for that, we are offering corporate secretary services, which actually means that we are taking care at very high levels drafting board minutes and shareholders resolutions evidencing the decision that has being taken either by the board, which is the governing body of the Luxembourg entity, or by the shareholders when a strategic decision has to be taken.

So perhaps, Salvatore, you can explain how we can support our clients when it comes to compliance and tax compliance services?

Salvatore: Of course, FX. Thank you very much. So other specific areas where we have seen an increased client's demand of services are, as you just said, FX, compliance services, regulatory reporting, as well as tax compliance services. Such categories are heavily exposed to new law changes, and this might be one of the main reasons justifying the trend of growing demand of outsource to us from clients.

Such services include interalia, for instance, AML, KYC due diligence, and periodical review, specific financial reporting to be submitted to the Luxembourg Financial Market Supervisory Authority or the Central Bank of Luxembourg, FATCA/CRS reporting, as well as the provision of FATCA responsible officer DAC6 reporting.

As to the tax compliance services, they typically includes the VAT registration and the registration of the SPV, the VAT returns preparation and filing, and then tax provisions calculation, and finally corporate income tax returns and filings.

After having said that, I will let you, David, if you don't mind, to cover the rest of our Lux expertise.

David: Thanks, Salvatore. I think, I mean, rather than kind of like discuss all the different things we do, I think that the people listening to this webinar today, well, I think they should just remember that we provide end-to-end solutions to alternative asset managers with the ability to set up and maintain entities at the global and local fund and SPV levels. I think we also deliver a comprehensive range of corporate client services related to asset transactions and administration for corporate vehicles.

So overall, you know, we we've been in business in Luxembourg since 1955. We have a lot of experience. There's over 600 people here in the country serving CSC and our clients. So we're very committed. We really understand the environment very well, and we are very eager and open to share our experience with you. Thank you.

Helena: So FX, why don't you tell us a little bit about the global coverage that CSC offers through our Global Subsidiary Management?

Francois-Xavier: Yeah, my pleasure to do it. It's actually one of our biggest competitive advantages if we compare CSC with all the main competitors. Why? I think if we try to put ourselves in client's shoes, we can we can easily imagine that for multi-jurisdictional clients, so clients that do have a presence perhaps in Europe, in the U.S., in India, or in China, in Asia, not being on the same time zone can easily be quite a bit of a challenge to deal with the service provider because we are all working in different time zones. And the multi-jurisdictional clients, by definition, has contact with the Luxembourg office, with the Amsterdam office, the Chicago office, and it can drain quite a bit of energy to deal with all those different offices.

So we came up with the idea of leveraging on the concept that remains close to our hearts, which is client-centricity and making sure that for those clients we do have only one dedicated team working on those accounts, meaning there is a few people that are going to be the go-to person for all multi-jurisdictional clients and they're going to take on them the burden of the coordination between the different offices that are globally servicing that specific client.

It's in place. It works quite well. And the first feedback that we received from clients is pretty positive around it because it simply helps to build a trusted relationship with our clients because they know to who they are talking to. They're going to call always the same team, always the same person. They know who is in charge of their account, and those guys, the front guys are actually supported by large teams. Don't forget we are present in more than 140 jurisdictions, so we need to offer that service where we are let's say coordinating with ourselves. And that's what the GSM concept is about.

Helena: Now that you've learned about Luxembourg and the services that CSC can offer with Luxembourg, we'd like to remind you again that we are the business behind business. As you can see from the solutions that are listed here, we're the partner of choice for global companies needing expertise in business administration and compliance, fund solutions, transactions and lending, capital markets, domain security and brand protection. Whatever your company needs to stay in compliance, transact business, and become secure against threats of the online world, CSC can help.