Dear Clients, Partners & Friends,

Intending not to sound like the dozens of emails you have received in the past weeks, we aim to relay a different message; of course, we are still very concerned about your well-being – who isn’t? We are here to deliver a brighter and hopefully more inspiring message to get us through these difficult times.

We – as your advisors, partners and in so many cases, friends – are within our own active hubs in (from East to West) Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Germany and The Netherlands, alone due to global home stay requirements, more or less 24/7 available for you.

Of course, this is not only due to the COVID outbreak and the tremendous measures our governments have taken, we have always been used to de-centralized work from well-equipped home offices.

Thus, for you we are all “just mouse clicks” away via many communication channels, just to name a few:

Mobile Phones | E-Mail | WhatsApp | Skype | Zoom

For all friends in the UAE (with its well-known limitations of VoIP) we strongly recommend the usage of Zoom (zoom.us), allowing us all to stay in touch with voice and video calls.

Take it for granted – we are always here to support you as we did before, and as we will always continue to do.

We have mastered over the last days, apart from many requests and client sessions, our own crisis management and planning, also to remain a trusted and reliable partner in general advice, best-practice, actually more legal than tax – and (unfortunately) practical force majeure and troubleshoot advisory for you.

Last (but never least) a word focusing on the challenges we must all face now together. This pandemic is not an event, it is a season, and obviously “The Crisis of this [our] Generation”.

Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale, a US Vietnam veteran who was imprisoned for 7.5 years in the dreaded “Hanoi Hilton” (which was one of the most brutal jails for war prisoners), once said:

“This is a very important lesson: You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” (The Stockdale Paradox)

Mark these two keywords – Faith and Discipline.

We wish you all the very best in such confusing and uncertain times: Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Take a good care. For you and your loved ones. For your employees and teams. For all around you who need it – some of whom may not be blessed with company like we are.
Keep your faith and discipline.
We want to overcome this season – and we will.

God bless.