BACK TO BANKING - IN CURASAO …

As it turned out, I did a reasonable amount of writing during our time in Gerrards Cross, but sadly, it failed to put food on the table. So, after two years I had to face the stark reality that only banking could provide me with a decent income. Just then, someone knocked on the door: a head-hunter, who said he had followed my trail from Tokyo and knew that I was planning to return to banking. I protested, but he cited reliable sources and dangled a position before my reluctant eyes, that of managing director of the Curasao subsidiary of a respectable Dutch investment bank, Pierson, Heldring and Pierson, known for short as PHP.

Curaçao is a Lesser Antilles island located in the Southern Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela. In the 16th and 17th centuries, sailors on long voyages from Portugal and Spain and the Netherlands often arrived suffering from scurvy, and recovered there by eating its fresh fruit. This is why the Portuguese called it Ilha da Curasao (Island of Healing), a name that stuck after the Dutch began colonizing the island from 1634, and never leaving it. Curasao is the main island of what for centunes was known as the Netherlands Antilles, a group of six islands. To this day, it forms part — as a self-governing region — of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its present population is around 160,000.

The reason PHP — and several other banks — had subsidiaries there is that it was a low-tax jurisdiction, with tax treaties with a number of countries including the USA., the United Kingdom and Japan. The trust department of the Curasao subsidiary of PHP set up Curacaobased (parent) companies for international corporations, which could then enjoy the benefits of the lower corporate taxes.

Interesting, I thought — but I hesitated, unable to see myself working in such a remote place. But Toyoko, always open to adventures, urged me to consider this offer seriously. Not wanting to capitulate quite so easily, I started negotiating, making some demands that I thought they would reject. But they accepted my conditions — and soon we had to start packing.