Ms. Amaka Okeke is the Executive Director, Business Development at Optiva Capital Partners Limited, a leading Investment Immigration Wealth Management Company. In an interactive session with Emeka Anaeto and other select Business Editors, she spoke about her firm’s commitment to support Nigerians get global access to trade and other endless opportunities. Excerpts.

Citizenship By Investment (CBI) attracts foreign direct investment by countries offering their citizenship for sale to high net worth individuals. Given an increase in competition, as we see the growth in this sector, why should a prospect choose you over and above competition to provide him/her this service that doesn’t come cheap?

Optiva Capital Partners is the undisputed market leader in investment immigration, investment advisory, wealth management and insurance services. Our mission is to improve lives by protecting, enhancing and optimizing our clients’ wealth through our rich network of global partners, our experience, and integrity of our process.

Optiva Capital Partners has been around since 2010. We have done this for thousands of families with a hundred percent success rate, then add the experience of board and management, the experience of our partnerships, that’s over one hundred years. Who is better to manage your wealth?

Two, we are the largest provider of investment immigration services not only in Nigeria but across Africa. We have a staff strength of over one thousand full paid employees, and no other company has close to that number. We have also extended our tentacles across seventeen strategic locations and we are still growing.

Talking about our end to end service delivery, we have dedicated document specialists who are there to work with you throughout the entire process, such that we have launched Optiva Plus which is a complementary thank you service for our clients. We also go beyond our service to do visa resolution, we do student admission for our clients’kids, and we also help with passport renewals. Then our elite global partnerships through which we help our clients with extensive, superior opportunities and options to help maximize their wealth across jurisdictions and across asset classes. We are capable and have the ability to do what we have promised

What does Investment Immigration and wealth management services entail? What makes it attractive? Why should Nigerians embrace it as an investment option, especially at a time like this?

Investment Immigration is a legal acquisition of citizenship or permanent residency through investment. Simply put, you invest in a country and you are accorded a citizenship or residency. Wealth management on the other hand is an investment advisory service that combines with financial services to meet the needs of affluent clients. On why it should look attractive, Robert Kiyosaki said “it is not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard that money works for you, and for how many generations you keep it for.” So if you stop working for how long will your money work for you. Wise investors will tell you to dilute your investments across jurisdictions, across assets, and across currencies.

With investment immigration, how do you diversify across currencies? This gives you second passport or permanent residency and you have global access to trade opportunities and endless opportunities.

Part of the reasons we have heard that companies shy from offering Investment Immigration service is because it is detailed and very strict on documentation and full disclosure, validation of documents and client’s certifications, amongst others. Shed more light on the processes, in the way that Optiva provides it.

Optiva Capital Partners is your one-stop shop for superior opportunities, from understanding the need of the clients, to recommending solutions for your needs. We assist our clients from end to end, answering queries and doing reviews on behalf of clients because we have dedicated documents specialists and the largest processing centre. Even after clients receive their passports we provide additional concierge services

Tell us about some of your partnerships in Investment Immigration for Citizenship By Investment (CBI)

One of our success stories is our ability to develop partnerships with strong and well recognized reputable institutions. One of them is Stuart Financial with headquarters in Montreal, Canada, a global company with offices in many countries. They are the financial intermediaries to the Quebec government, and they are members of the investment regulatory Council of Canada. A very strong institution, they have never had any African partner before now, and we are their only African partners. Not only that, we are engaged with them in Greece, Portugal, and of course here in Africa, for Federal Start-up programme in Canada.

So for them to have that level of confidence in us, that should tell you something. We also have Green and Spiegel, which is Canada’s oldest and largest immigration law firm based in Toronto, specializing in corporate and personal immigration services. They have offices in five countries including the USA, and we are their only African partners. Then you have the Heng Sheng Group, which is another global group with footprints in many countries like USA, China, Singapore, Grenada. They have the largest investment in the Caribbean right now, a $2.4B investment. They are building the Grenada National Resort. We are equally their only African partner because prior to our relationship with them they had pockets of relationship but as soon as we came everything was subsumed into our relationship.

Then we have Range Developments, an award-winning developer of luxury resorts offering Citizenship By Investment programmes in Grenada and the Caribbean. We are not exclusive because Range has other partners. We also have Anchor Capital, easily the largest trading investment banking group in South Africa with Asset Under Management of over Seven Billion US Dollars. We are their only partners right now. There is also AIL, an international insurance group, and also TIW Capital Group, a global asset management company in South East Asia with offices in Singapore, India, and UAE. Then we have CTP in Tampa, Florida, USA, which develops and manages over 760 old peoples’ homes. So we have a very strong and robust operation and we hope to grow it.

In terms of offerings, for Nigerians who are not looking to or cannot afford Investment Immigration, what are the other offerings to clients that a holistic wealth management and investment advisory group can give for better returns on investment?

When you talk about our commitment and our holistic offering of solutions that means for different people across different life stages we have got solutions. Investment immigration in nature is a premium service, it is legislated and introduced by acts of parliament in the various jurisdictions that we deal with and it is for high networth individuals to be able to bring in investments to spur economic growth in those particular jurisdictions.

But apart from that, at Optiva Capital Partners we have our holistic offering when it comes to wealth management. With investment immigration you have to deal with different options, so if you are looking at Canada there are different investment amounts. But looking at investment services and advisory, what we have is still a full range of investment for clients so whatever their life stage is, whether they are new entrants into the workplace, or middle level management or they are new families in their thirties or in their forties, we have got investment solutions for them that are well designed.

You have an organization that is thirteen years and still running. It’s safe to assume that you have grown from an insurance brokerage firm and evolved into a full-fledged wealth management organization and it did not happen by chance. What factors and values are key in driving this evolving institution?

The story of Optiva Capital Partners cannot be told without reckoning with the environment. It has been a challenging business environment, policies that have made it difficult in terms of operating environment, but one of the things we have prioritized as a company has been to recognize our staff, and then the customers. Optiva Capital has been about staff and customers. So by selecting the best in the market and motivating them, and creating greater opportunities for employees, training and incentives, to create and develop loyal staff because that loyalty is key to progress.

So where we are able to channel everybody’s eye to the goal and creating an environment that is conducive for growth that has been key to our progress. When you have highly motivated staff then they are able to deliver on your promises to your customers. So we have developed a culture where the staff are constantly seeking to give more to the client, which is our goal.