The company entered the Italian market for the first time in the first quarter of 2012, with an office in Rome that has now become its head office in the country.
Within the last few weeks, it has hired two new advisers to look after expatriates “and other mainly northern Europeans living in Tuscany and Milan”, bringing its Italy advisory team to three, according to Michael Lodhi, chairman and co-founder of the company.
One will be based in Lucca, a picturesque Tuscan city northeast of Pisa, and the other in Milan, Lodhi said.
‘Widely scattered’
Unlike their counterparts in some other countries popular with British and northern European expatriates, such as Spain, those who choose to live in Italy tend to want to embrace the culture, people “and la doce vita”, rather than gravitating to areas full of other expats like themselves, according to Gareth Horsfall, a UK-qualified financial adviser who runs Spectrum’s Italian operation, and who has lived in Rome for the past nine years.
“As a result, they are spread far and wide around the country, making the job of running a business centered around this demographic very difficult,” he added.
That said, they have begun to come together increasingly in recent years, he added, “out of the necessity to seek expert help and advice in their native languages, on such matters as tax”.
Some other advisory firms with a presence in Italy include Blacktower Financial and the deVere Group.
