Representatives of financial and trust companies in Anguilla are preparing and registering for the 2015 STEP Caribbean Conference which Anguilla will be hosting in St Maarten later this year. A number of them met at a cocktail event at DaVida on January 28 to begin the countdown for the conference to be hosted by STEP Anguilla and Anguilla Finance Ltd.
Mr Carlyle Rogers, a Standing Member of the Step Anguilla Branch Executive and a representative of the STEP Caribbean Conference Steering Committee, spoke about the upcoming conference. “2015 marks the first time that Anguilla will be hosting …the STEP Caribbean Conference,” he stated. “Because we don’t have the hotel facilities, the conference has to be staged in neighbouring St Maarten. It will be staged from the 4th to the 6th of May, and on the 3rd of May we are hoping to have an event here in Anguilla at Da Vida.”
Mr Rogers was pleased to announce that Anguilla Finance Ltd will be the presenting or main sponsor of the Step Conference. It is understood that several thousand delegates from the United States, Europe and the Caribbean will be at the conference.
Mr Steve Garlick, CEO of Anguilla Finance, encouraged all persons register for the conference. “I think it is incumbent on everyone in Anguilla to make the most of it – not only by being a delegate in St Maarten – but also be interacting and networking with all of the people we have coming to the STEP Caribbean Conference. Those people will be coming from all over the world – the US mainly, but also the Caribbean and Europe. They are trust and estate practitioners whose clients are the most wealthy people on God’s planet. So let’s try and get some money off them basically – either as clients or as advisers to clients.”
Referring to the event which Mr Rogers alluded to earlier, Mr Garlick explained: “On Sunday, 3rd May, we are going to have a day trip extravaganza, hopefully at Da Vida’s, to showcase Anguilla to provide the opportunity to bring investors in the island…and also to gain the trust of potential clients as well. There will be other opportunities…to get these delegates to extend their stay beyond the conference so that we can give them the full Anguilla treatment.”
Mr Rogers introduced Ms Kerry Harris, who has been employed by the STEP Caribbean Conference, to undertake the marketing of the event. “These kinds of opportunities really do a lot of heavy work for you as a jurisdiction,” she told her listeners. She added: “The STEP Caribbean Conference is one of those marketing opportunities you can depend upon.”
