Month: March 2018

Barclays Private Bank has announced several appointments, which authenticate the opportunities it sees for growth in Monaco and Switzerland, as well as demonstrating its strong team with a depth of talent.

Gerald Mathieu will move from Monaco to Switzerland to take the role of Chief Executive Officer and General Manager of Barclays Bank (Suisse). As a result, Andrew Mott and Sophie Saurini have been appointed to lead client and market engagement in Monaco, supported by the sales management team.

Ms Saurini joined Barclays in 2011 and has been leading a team of Private Bankers in Monaco focused on UHNW clients.

Mr Mott has been with Barclays for 35 years and has been leading the Monaco UK team of Private Bankers for the past seven years.

Jean Daniel Troy will continue in his role as Deputy General Manager for Monaco and Kamran Djavadi, in his role as EMEA Head of Business Delivery and Control, will carry on working closely with Francesco Grosoli, CEO, Private Bank EMEA & Monaco Branch, and the leadership team to deliver Barclays ambitions across EMEA and the whole Private Banking and Overseas Services business.

Mr Grosoli told Monaco Life, “With Gerald in Switzerland, Andrew and Sophie in Monaco and Steve Klemme, who recently joined as Head of Middle East, we have a strong and experienced EMEA leadership team in place for Private Bank and Overseas Services to support the delivery of tailored and relevant solutions for our clients.

“We’ve got a strong mandate for growth and Monaco plays a significant role in delivering this ambition.”

Barclays has been reinvesting in the Private Bank and Overseas Services business over the last 12 months, with over 100 hires, furthering the bank’s commitment to EMEA, Switzerland, Monaco and MENA.

The recent appointments emphasise the bank’s focus on enabling colleagues to reach their full potential through development and mobility opportunities.

Barclays long-term vision continues to be about making decisions and doing business that positively impacts clients, customers and shareholders, as well as the communities in which they operate.

As an example, the Monaco branch celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8 with a highly successful in-house event featuring local businesses. Guest speakers included award-winning Sommelier Julia Scavo, health and nutrition coach Madeleine Karlsson and Kasey Robinson from the association She Can He Can, which aims to inspire girls to take leadership roles.

The Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation was also represented, as well as Bel Air Fine Art, HRH Jewels, Fragonard and Rossano Ferretti Hair Spa.

Article first published March 21, 2018.

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This article is part of an interview with Monaco Open for Business: Serge Pierryves, Director of Monaco’s Business Development Agency (Direction de l’Expansion Economique).

During the first year of a new business activity, Monegasque citizens or their spouses may apply for a grant or a loan to help them finance the setting up of a new business, on condition that the business is their only professional activity, that is, that they have no other paid activity. This aid can be obtained for any business activity for self-employed workers or companies in the sectors of commerce, industry, artisanal, professional and services.

The grant consists of two components and is generally granted for a three-year period.

The first component is a contribution towards the payment of rent for business premises to be used as the head office or main premises. It is paid in the form of a subsidy and is capped on a sliding scale each year (€710 per month in the first year, €510 per month in the second year and €300 per month in the third year).

The second component covers contributions towards social charges for self-employed workers. In other words, the state will cover health and pension payments to the Caisse d’Assurance Maladie des Travailleurs Indépendants (CAMTI) and to the Caisse Autonome des Retraites des Travailleurs Indépendants (CARTI).

See also Financial aid for setting up a business in Monaco: the Pass Startup Programme

See also Monaco open for Business: 4 types of financial support for businesses 

This grant represents more than €5,000 per year for each beneficiary, and an annual budget of around €650,000 for the state.

Beneficiaries can also obtain an installation loan to help them cover any work needed to be carried out on the business premises and to purchase furniture, materials and stock. It can also be used to buy a business or a lease. The loan is capped at €100,000 (and 80 percent of the value of the investment), for a maximum period of ten years.

The loan can be reimbursed in advance, at any time, without penalties being incurred.

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Monaco Open for Business: Laurence Garino of Monaco Welcome Office

Monaco has its fair share of high-end sushi joints, from Buddha Bar to Moshi Moshi, as well as the Planet Sushi franchise, all of which offer freshly prepared on site variations of the Japanese rice delicacy. And although International Sushi Day isn’t until June 18, I am often asked how healthy is sushi and how often should you eat it?

The answer depends on whom you ask. In a New York Times article titled ‘Is Sushi “Healthy”? What About Granola? Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree’, published in July 2016, 75 percent of nutritionists think that sushi is healthy compared to only 49 percent of the public when asked the same question. (As an aside, 72 percent of the public versus 32 percent of nutritionists consider coconut oil healthy).

As I tell my clients, for me there’s no one answer.  From my own experience, sushi weighs in somewhere in the middle on the it’s-good-for-you scale. But depending on the ingredients, the food source, and how and where it’s prepared, sushi can be very good, very bad or just a waste of calories.

Fresh cold water fish, such as tuna, salmon and trout, are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids and proteins and that’s good for you, and depending on the type of fish, it may also have varying amounts of vitamins A and D, magnesium and calcium. Also good for you. However, the fish may also contain mercury which is NOT good for you.

Fresh vegetables, often an integral part of sushi, are loaded with healthy vitamins and minerals. Great, but … they may also contain herbicides, pesticides and other “cides” you don’t really want in your system.

Essentially, this means that sushi by name does not equate healthy eating. You need to be careful.

Avoid deep-fried sushi. Let’s be honest, deep-fried anything, with the fat, salt and high temperatures, is unhealthy (even if tastier). Deep-frying vegetables robs them of their beta-carotene and vitamin A, as well as other nutrients.

Skip the sauces. Sauce can mask the true appearance and taste of fish, vegetables or rice, especially when they are of inferior quality.

Take smaller rice portions. Rice is the cheapest ingredient in sushi, so some restaurants use higher proportions. Sushi rice tastes different than ordinary rice because of the added vinegar, salt and sugar.  Depending on the origin of the rice, it may contain high quantities of arsenic.

Investigate the ingredients. The quality of the ingredients is crucial. Don’t be afraid to ask the chef how much salt, vinegar and sugar is used. Ask about the origin of the fish and whether it is organic, ditto for the vegetables.

Choose your fish wisely. Mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and other harmful chemicals can be found in some fish species.  The “5 S” (salmon, shrimp, scallops, squid and sardines), as well as oysters and tilapia, are likely to have the lowest amounts of mercury while king mackerel, swordfish, Chilean sea bass, bluefish, halibut, Spanish mackerel (Gulf) and canned albacore tuna usually contain the highest levels.

Also note that fish farmers frequently add chemicals to make the fish larger and more attractive, so you may want to inquire whether the fish is farm-raised or wild. Pink dye, is almost always added to farmed salmon feeding, to give it the same colour as wild salmon because consumers shy away from buying white salmon.

The clean and fresh test. Even the most nutrient-rich food can give you food poisoning if the kitchen is filthy or the ingredients are not fresh. With fish this is even more important because sushi tends to be uncooked, which raises the risk that infectious pathogens (such as Hepatitis A and Vibrio vulnificus) remain in the food. Once again, if there’s too much sauce, ask yourself what is it hiding underneath. When it comes to sashimi the rules are pretty much the same. Use your common sense.

The bottom line is that nutrition is complex, and you should be asking yourself what makes certain foods healthy or unhealthy and under which circumstances. My preference is to avoid sushi from large commercial chains and supermarkets (although Carrefour in Monaco prepares the sushi fresh in the store), in favour of eating sushi when I know how and where it is prepared.

Udi Gon-Paz is a Clinical Nutritionist licensed in Monaco and specialising in stress management for holistic wellbeing. Article first published March 15, 2018.

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An important exhibition of post-war Masters will take place from April 19 until May 26 at Gallery Adriano Ribolzi.

The impressive exhibition dedicated to celebrated Masters of the post-war era will be a tribute to some of the greatest artists of the second half of the twentieth century, with works selected with care to melt in a unique atmosphere some examples of artistic trends that have undoubtedly contributed to an evolution of the History of Art, such as Andy Warhol and Mario Schifano’s Pop Art, Alighiero Boetti’s Arte Povera and the Minimalism of Michelangelo Pistoletto, Agostino Bonalumi and the “father of minimalism”, Enrico Castellani, who died in December 2017.

Additionally, precious ceramics by Lucio Fontana and Fausto Melotti, with marble sculptures by Pablo Atchugarry, and luminous surfaces of Getulio Alviani will be on display at the gallery at 3/7 avenue de’l’Hermitage.

The exhibition will be open to the public at from Tuesday to Saturday 10 am to midday and from 2:30 pm to 7 pm.

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A few weeks before the Grand Prix History and Grand Prix Formula 1, the Urban Planning Department will undertake a road repair operation for part of the circuit.

These regular asphalt repairs also allow the Principality to have a particularly well-maintained network of urban roads.

The asphalt used on the F1 circuit has properties that meet the requirements of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). Its formulation, in particular, is specific to Formula 1, and more efficient in terms of tearing and resistance.

This year, the sections to be resurfaced are: the roundabout Portier and Boulevard Louis II; Boulevard Albert 1er; the road to the pool/Darse north; and the Quai des Etats-Unis.

To minimise the impact to traffic, this work will be carried out mainly at night.

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