No EB-5 investor wants to take on unnecessary risk. But avoiding risk can be tricky.
Many EB-5 investors overlook one of the easiest ways to assess project risk: Before you invest, speak directly with the project’s regional center principals.
A project’s regional center sponsor is largely responsible for the EB-5 investors’ immigration and financial success. Because of this, a strong EB-5 investment offering is not just about the project itself—it is also about the regional center and its principals. It is therefore critical that EB-5 investors have the chance to speak directly with the people who will be managing their EB-5 funds.
In this article, we explain why you need to find a project with highly qualified regional center principals. We then discuss the main benefits of speaking with the regional center principals and what you should ask them. Next, we show how EB5AN differs from most regional center operators, supported by statements from real investors. We conclude with an encouragement to carefully consider whether to move forward with any project that does not let you speak to the regional center principals.
The Importance of Selecting a Regional Center With Qualified Principals
- The Benefits of Speaking Directly With a Regional Center’s Principals
- The Principals Are Responsible for Compliance
- The Principals Make Decisions
- The Principals Have Up-to-Date Information
The Principals Have Intimate Knowledge of the EB-5 Deal
What You Need to Ask Regional Center Principals
A Personalized Investor Experience
- Access to the Principals’ Backgrounds and Track Records
- Open Communication With the Principals
- Direct Answers to Your Questions
Investor Testimonials
- Siva’s Experience Finding a Team He Could Trust
- Deepak’s Experience Speaking with EB-5 Regional Center Principals
Move Forward Carefully if a Regional Center’s Principals Will Not Speak to You
The Importance of Selecting a Regional Center With Qualified Principals
Who are regional center principals? These are the people listed in offering documents as the management team of the EB-5 regional center. These individuals have a massive impact on whether or not your EB-5 investment results in immigration and financial success.
Who they are matters. Their vision, strategy, and philosophy affect the kinds of projects they offer and how they structure investments. Their knowledge, experience, and educational background impact how competent they are and how well they can adapt to dynamic situations. Their track record will speak for itself.
Consider the following illustration.
Suppose you were diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery. Would you want your surgeon to be a recent med school graduate with minimal experience performing the surgery you need? Would you want your surgeon to have been at the bottom of their class from a medical school you have never heard of? Would you want an unlicensed surgeon or a surgeon who has been the subject of multiple patient malpractice suits?
Of course not. With your life on the line, you would want a highly qualified surgeon with impeccable credentials. You would want them to have significant experience performing the exact type of surgery that you need. You would want them to have a pristine track record, a high rate of success, and no patient malpractice lawsuits.
In the same way, when your family’s finances and future are on the line, would you trust a regional center led by principals who are more like the poorly qualified surgeons in the illustration above? No. You want the regional center principals to be more like highly qualified surgeons with ample experience and strong track records. You want leaders who can give you the best, most up-to-date information on the EB-5 program, recent USCIS policy changes, and industry news and events. You want principals who attended top universities, who have worked at the most respected investment and consulting firms, who understand EB-5 compliance, who structure high-quality, low-risk projects, and who carefully vet developers, choosing to work with only the best.
Unfortunately, some regional center principals simply do not have strong credentials and have a less-than-stellar track record.
Since your EB-5 investment depends on the competence and compliance of the regional center’s principals, you need to know that they meet the above criteria. You need to know they have a strong background with relevant experience and a track record of success.
One of the best ways to learn about the principals is to speak directly with them.
The Benefits of Speaking Directly With a Regional Center’s Principals
A regional center’s principals can provide you with more than just basic project information. They have a high-level understanding of the regional center as a company, and they tend to know the fine details of how their EB-5 investments are structured.
The following are the main reasons an EB-5 investor may want to speak directly with a regional center’s principals when choosing an EB-5 project.
The Principals Are Responsible for Compliance
The principals of an EB-5 regional center must answer to their EB-5 investors and the U.S. government for what they say and do. They are responsible for compliance with U.S. securities laws, EB-5 program laws and regulations, and USCIS policy.
Accountability tends to make people honest and transparent. By talking to the principals of an EB-5 regional center, you are more likely to get a complete picture of the EB-5 investment, its risks, and the current status of the project.
The Principals Make Decisions
By speaking with the principals of an EB-5 regional center, you can have your questions answered directly. The principals can help you understand the rationale for the regional center’s actions. When speaking with the principals, you are speaking with people who have the power to make decisions and act on them. Your questions do not have to move up the chain of command, and your concerns do not have to be escalated to a supervisor. Speaking to the principals saves you time and effort.
The Principals Have Up-to-Date Information
The principals of an EB-5 regional center are more likely to keep a close watch on the EB-5 investment than anyone else. They are involved in structuring their projects and approving all project details after doing due diligence. Because they are intimately involved in the deal, they tend to pay careful attention to all project developments.
The principals should always be up to date on the construction and financing progress of their projects, including details about EB-5 spending and eligible job creation. By speaking directly with the principals, you can get a sense of where the project is right now, how many EB-5 jobs have been created, how sales are progressing, and more.
The Principals Have Intimate Knowledge of the EB-5 Deal
The structure and terms of the EB-5 deal were negotiated between the EB-5 regional center and the project developer. As a result, the principals of an EB-5 regional center are intimately acquainted with every aspect of the EB-5 investment.
The principals understand the specific risks of the investment and what features are in place to mitigate those risks. Their deep understanding of the investment enables them to provide more context and insight than others could.
What You Need to Ask Regional Center Principals
When you speak to a regional center’s principals, you should ask a number of key questions that are not clearly answered elsewhere. These questions should relate to the principals’ backgrounds, the regional center’s track record, and the project’s current status.
Regional Center Principals’ Backgrounds
You may be able to find information about the regional center principals on their website or social media. Sometimes, this information is unavailable or sparse. But you need to know the credentials of the people who will be managing your money.
Where did they go to college? What did they study?
What relevant work experience do they have? Have they worked for any major firms?
What qualifies them to manage your EB-5 investment? How many EB-5 investments have they managed? Have any failed? How much money have they managed?
These are the kinds of questions that will help you ascertain the qualifications of the people who will be in charge of your investment.
Regional Center Track Record
You may be able to find information about the regional center online, but this information is going to be carefully worded. It will likely exclude vital information you need to know.
How many projects has the regional center sponsored? How many projects are current, how many have succeeded, and how many have failed?
Has the regional center successfully repaid any of its prior EB-5 investors?
Project’s Current Status
While you should be able to find generic information about the project in its documents, this information is likely out of date. You should ask questions to learn the current status of the project.
Has the project received Form I-956F project approval? Did it receive any requests for evidence during that process?
Is the project on track according to the business plan? Is spending happening according to budget? Is job creation on target?
How many EB-5 investors have already invested in the project? How many investment slots remain open?
A Personalized Investor Experience
Each EB-5 investor has their own circumstances, investment goals, preferences, and questions. At EB5AN, we strive to treat each EB-5 investor as a unique individual. We do not take a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, we seek to personalize the EB-5 experience for each of our investors.
Few principals from other EB-5 companies make themselves available to potential clients. We pride ourselves on being the most transparent EB-5 regional center in the industry. Through open communication and direct answers, we are able to meet the specific needs of every investor who invests in our projects.
Access to the Principals’ Backgrounds and Track Records
EB5AN’s principals, Sam and Mike, make it easy for you to gauge their experience and track records. You can view their resumés (Sam’s LinkedIn; Mike’s LinkedIn), read about their backgrounds, and get a sense of why they founded EB5AN and how they lead it.
EB-5 is a mix of immigration law, investment, and real estate development, and people who work in the EB-5 industry come from a variety of backgrounds. We believe a recipe for success is to have a strong management team with relevant backgrounds at some of the best firms and strong internal support from a range of professionals.
Open Communication With the Principals
Unlike most EB-5 regional center operators, EB5AN offers EB-5 investors open access to its principals. You can schedule a free consultation today to get in contact with one of our principals.
Direct Answers to Your Questions
EB5AN encourages EB-5 investors to ask lots of questions. We believe that the more you know, the better situated you are to make a good EB-5 investment decision—and you deserve answers. Our principals are happy to provide answers to your questions in writing.
Investor Testimonials
Siva’s Experience Finding a Team He Could Trust
In a full-length interview, an EB-5 investor named Siva discussed why it is important to speak directly with the principals of the EB-5 regional center. He explained how he looked into a number of regional centers but was not satisfied.
“I felt like a lot of the time, we were speaking to salespeople as opposed to the principals of the regional centers. Personally, if I’m investing that amount of money, I want to speak to the person that’s in charge, and I don’t want to speak to a salesperson. I felt that, with almost every single other regional center, we were speaking to salespeople who were generally incentivized differently from the actual principals of the regional centers. For us, that was a critical difference.”
Siva went on to share the following advice: “Choose a project where you can trust the person that you’re speaking to at the regional center. They should be a principal or a partner in that regional center. They should not, in my opinion, be a salesperson. They should be somebody with a stake in the reputation of the regional center, as opposed to somebody who can move between different [jobs].”
Of working with EB5AN, Siva said, “Our experience was excellent, extremely responsive. … I got to speak to the principal and partner of the regional center. Absolutely no issues at all with EB5AN, a fantastic experience there. … I felt like they operated with the highest level of integrity.”
Deepak’s Experience Speaking with EB-5 Regional Center Principals
Another EB-5 investor, Deepak, also discussed the importance of being able to directly access a regional center’s principals. Deepak talked about how he was not able to connect with principals at other regional centers.
Deepak said, “I didn’t get a chance to talk to any principal in any of the regional centers actually. It was mostly someone who was hired either two years back or four years back … And I don’t know if after my investment they would still be there or not.”
However, Deepak noted that this “was not the case with here [EB5AN], Sam. I was interacting with you. You were very fast in replying to me and all that stuff, which boosted my confidence a lot.”
Move Forward Carefully if a Regional Center’s Principals Will Not Speak to You
If an EB-5 investor is not able to speak with a regional center’s principals during the initial sales process, imagine how hard it will be to reach them after investing.
Before you invest nearly a million dollars, ask yourself why the principals of a regional center would not speak directly with you. Do they not value you enough to make time to talk? What better use of their time is there than speaking directly to their investors, many of whom will be making the largest investments of their lives?
You should carefully consider whether to move forward with an investment in a project if the principals will not speak to you. You may want to look for another project, one where the principals are accessible and willing to answer questions directly.
We believe you deserve to speak to the people who will manage and oversee your investment. You can schedule a time to talk with one of our principals. We would be delighted to answer all of your questions.
