EB-5 visas, a federal program that allows foreigners to live in the U.S. if they invest in job-creating ventures took in a record number of applications last year

January 24, 2014 Leave a comment

EB-5 Visas for Investors See Record Demand
Program Saw 6,434 Foreigners Apply in the Latest Year
ANGUS LOTEN
Jan. 20, 2014 7:22 p.m. ET
A federal program that allows foreigners to live in the U.S. if they invest in job-creating ventures took in a record number of applications last year.
Known as an EB-5 visa, the program has boomed over the past seven years, as traditional forms of financing dried up for projects ranging from hotels and casinos to wind farms and frozen-yogurt franchises. The minimum investment under the program is $500,000. Companies that have tapped EB-5 investors for cash include Marriott International Inc.MAR +0.75% and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.
Last year, 6,434 foreign investors applied for visas under the program, up from 6,040 in 2012, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency within the Department of Homeland Security that oversees the program. As of Sept. 30, the end of the federal government’s fiscal year, the agency had approved 3,696 investors, most Chinese, and denied 942.
If approved, investors receive a temporary visa for themselves and their families that can be converted into permanent residency—that is, a green card—if the investment is shown to have created at least 10 jobs within two years.
Last year, 6,895 Chinese nationals were issued visas through the program, outpacing all other nationalities by a wide margin, according to State Department data. South Koreans, the next largest group, were issued 364. A single EB-5 application can account for multiple visas for investors’ immediate family.
The 5% rate of growth in the program in 2013 was lower than in recent years, when the number of applications increased by 58%, in 2012, and 94% in 2011.
Launched by Congress in 1990, the program has recently been plagued by allegations of fraud and charges of mismanagement by immigration officials. That has led to increased scrutiny of the program by the immigration agency, which has caused delays in the application process, immigration lawyers say.
To date, the agency estimates the program has raised $8.6 billion and created at least 57,300 jobs since 1990.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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