Los Angeles, CA – New company registrations increased in most offshore jurisdictions in the second half of 2013, according to Appleby, one of the world’s largest providers of offshore legal, fiduciary and administration services.

In total, there were 44,615 new offshore company incorporations in the second half of 2013, and the total number of active companies rose to 671,000, according to the firm’s latest On the Register report.

The report provides insight and data on company incorporations in offshore financial centers and is focused primarily on the second half of 2013.

“As the global economy follows a path to recovery, offshore company registration data reveals that levels of new company registrations are up in most jurisdictions during the second half of 2013, with increases of between 5 percent and 10 percent,” said Farah Ballands, partner and global head of Fiduciary & Administration Services at London, UK-based Appleby.

Overall, the report found, the combined total of new offshore incorporations in the second half of 2013 “represents a slow-down compared to the preceding six months,” attributing much of the pull-back to a decline in incorporations in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) – which is the offshore jurisdiction that attracts the most company registrations.

Though it maintained a two-fold lead over its nearest comparator, the Seychelles, the number of new companies joining the BVI register shrank by 17 percent when compared to the first half of the year.

The story of company incorporations, the report said, “is largely positive with the Cayman Islands being the only other offshore jurisdiction to report a decrease in new registrations in the second half of 2013 when compared to the first half of the year.”

However, the report attributed the decrease to a seasonal decline in company registrations and, when looking at 2013 as a whole, Cayman experienced a healthy 5 percent growth.

During the second half of 2013, the Crown Dependency jurisdictions of the Isle of Man and Guernsey revealed the largest increases in new companies joining the registers at 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively, over the previous half.  The number of new companies added to the register in Mauritius, meanwhile, was up 8 percent on the previous period.

The largest year-on-year increase was seen in the Seychelles (29 percent), followed by Bermuda (16 percent), which saw a recent high in new incorporations – more than 1,000 annually for the first time since 2008.

Data for the report was collected from reported figures produced by the national registries of Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, and the UK.

In addition, data available from Jersey Finance, the Central Bank of Seychelles and the Financial Services Commissions of Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands, Seychelles International Business Authority, The US Census Bureau, The State of Delaware, The Federal State Statistics Service in Russia and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce of China was also analyzed.

08/19/2014