Canadian Lawyer - sample

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6 33 Vancouver city report The hiring joke in the Vancouver legal community is that every firm wants a "unicorn" — a First Nations lawyer capable of speaking Mandarin. It exemplifies the two growth areas in the Vancouver legal market, but most agree the swell of Asian dollars is lead- ing, as Vancouver remains a hot spot for yet another wave of Asian immi- grant investors. The new 15-per-cent property transfer tax imposed by the B.C. Liberal government on foreign homebuyers is expected to kick out the speculator, but it won't deter the true investor who sees Metro Vancouver as a safe haven for cash. "It is almost a tsunami," says Edmond Luke, a partner at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, who heads the Asia Pacif- ic Group, when he talks about the latest influx of immigrants and cash. The tax may break the wave at its edges but not its strong base as the trend is entrenched, fuelled by the underpinnings of a large Asian business community in Metro Van- couver, and Vancouver International Air- port, which boasts all five major Asian carriers and more Chinese carriers than any other airport in the Americas. "The entire platform [for Asian investment] has been built over the past 30 years," Luke says of the time China's central govern- ment embraced private entrepreneurship. It is not going away. "This latest wave started in 2000 and we are at 2016; each year it just seems to be getting bigger," says Luke, as immigrant investors or foreign Asian companies bring in capital to partner with Canadian companies, invest in real estate develop- ments or acquire assets. Previous invest- ment waves have not lasted 16 years, he says, another reason he doubts the transfer tax will deter serious investors. "They may have to tweak it," he says, as the Liberals realize that new tax catch- es legitimate investors in the same net as speculators. The inbound Asian investors seek- ing out legal firms are a far cry from earlier waves. They are entrepreneurial, worldly, as they often navigate on a global basis, and better educated. They are more sophisticated, says Luke. The early wave cloistered around Vancouver's Chinatown, now more of a tourist haunt, while later waves settled in nearby Rich- mond, which sounds like "rich man" but translates into "gateway to fortune." This new wave is settling throughout Metro Vancouver, not intimidated by the seven-digit price stickers on homes in the Lower Mainland. The South China Morning Post reported that, since 2002, more than 60,000 millionaire migrants and family members have arrived in Vancouver. "There is no doubt that they are savvy players in the real estate market," says managing partner Keith Mitchell of Far- ris Vaughan Wills & Murphy LLP. "They see real estate as an important com- ponent of an investment portfolio and their long-term thinking. They are inter- generational thinkers. They value what we have here — a clean environment, a good health-care system and a good education system." He says the influx of new arrivals are coming to Farris for a range of services, ranging from estate planning to legal advice on taxation on investments and facilitating new invest- ments made here. Mitchell also sees the trend as a rising one and more Asian- B.C. joint-venture business happening on the horizon as the Asian countries are rimmed around B.C. "We see the phenomenon continuing," he says. Victor Tsao, managing partner in the Vancouver office of DS Avocats, agrees that the new tax, which was applied as of Aug. 2, will have a moderating impact on the speculator. He worries, though, that others caught in the net will serve as a punitive measure to legitim- ate immigrants who are coming to live and invest and are in the immigration process. "They usually like to buy some- thing before arriving," he says. Investors will still come to the Greater Vancouver area, he believes, but they will now suffer a burden. The latest influx of Asian dollars he has seen has come from commut- ing fathers, dubbed "astronauts," from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who brought their wife and children to Can- ada attracted by Canada's excellent edu- cation facilities, stable politics and a clean environment. They are no longer commuting. "That has ended dramatic- ally," says Tsao. The children have now graduated university, settled in Can- ada and have families. Pulled in by the magnetism of family and grandchildren, the travelling dads are now winding down their foreign businesses. They are moving cash to Vancouver as they seek investment opportunities ranging from hotels to property development. Tsao says DS Avocat's strong presence in the Asian market (with three offices in China) drew him to boost the firm's presence in the Vancouver market. "It was important to me because a large part of my practice is inbound Chinese investors," he says, including returning fathers to state-owned and private com- panies out of China. State-owned enterprises dominated until China's central government policy changed in the late 1970s and private entreprises and non-government entities emerged. While there are still SOEs run by all levels of Chinese government, Tsao "We now have another wave of the [state-owned enterprises] — they are back. They are on their next round of investments and acquisitions. They have become aware that the Canadian market is more than just oil and minerals." Victor Tsao, DS Advocate

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