A second office is planned for Milan later this year, according to John Westwood, managing director of Blacktower Financial Management Group.
A third office, in Naples, is also being considered. Blacktower is planning to look after American as well as British and Commonwealth expatriates in Italy, and Naples is where the US Navy’s sizeable European operation, including its Sixth Fleet, is based.
The expansion into Italy is part of “a broader corporate strategy of expanding into other EU countries” from Blacktower’s current network of branches, mainly clustered along Mediterranean coastal areas, Westwood said.
Some 10 advisers are expected to be hired for the operation over the next 12 months, and as many as 30 over the next three years.
The Rome office brings to seven Blacktower’s current office portfolio, now comprised of two offices in Spain; one in Portugal, France and Italy; plus the company headquarters in Gibraltar and an administrative office in the UK.
Named to head up the Rome office, pending approval by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission, is Ian Leigh, 41, who has been involved in financial services and banking in the UK since 1988, apart from the last few years, when he developed internet and media marketing programmes as a consultant for such companies as Yell Group and Daily Mail & General Trust plc.
Leigh also owned and ran his own advisory business, based in Southwest England, for five years before selling it in 2007.
The new Blacktower office is located on via Antonio Salandra in Rome’s centro storico, within blocks of the British Embassy; the American Embassy; Santa Susanna, a Roman Catholic church favoured by Americans; and St Paul’s Within the Walls, an Episcopal church with a largely American congregation.
As reported here in January, Spectrum, another Europe-focussed advisory group, has just opened an office in Rome, adding to its network in France, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
DeVere Group is also planning to open an office in Milan, Italy, sometime later this year.
28,000 Britons in Italy
The UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office estimates that some 28,000 British nationals live in Italy, while the number of Americans is estimated at around 15,000 to 25,000, according to Christopher Winner, editor and publisher of The American, a Rome-based online magazine for American ex-pats.
Rome in particular has long been the home of choice for English-speaking expatriates and for 40 years until 1986 a daily English-language newspaper, the Daily American, was published there. Among the main local employers of English-speaking foreigners are the various embassies and consulates of countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Ireland, as well as the UN’s Food & Agricultural Organisation and countless English-language schools and university study-abroad programmes.
Milan, meanwhile, is Italy’s financial centre and where its stock market is based, and is also important in the fashion and furniture design industries.
