Profile of Offshore Financial Center - Bahamas Term Paper

Profile of Offshore Financial Center - Bahamas - Term Paper Example Particularly for the offshore company, it requires to perform several checks and researches into the preferred offshore financial center to ensure that investing in that market can guarantee fruitful financial returns (Zorome, 2007). It is against this background that periodic environmental assessment analyses are performed for various offshore financial centres to test their financial viability for specific offshore companies and offshore countries. In the current paper, the spotlight is put on Bahamas as an offshore financial center to critically understudy the viability of that financial market as a preferred entity to use to raise capital Intel Corporation prior to doing an initial public offer. The profiling of Bahamas as a viable offshore financial center is done along six major parameters as outlined below. Secrecy and Views In the financial market, such as the offshore financial center, issues of secrecy and views are very important for the determination of financial transpar ency of a given center. It is for this reason that the need to study the secrecy and views that prevails on the Bahamian offshore market, such as financial secrecy is very important for making decision on the selection of the country as an entity for raising capital for an initial public offer. Nyangosi, Arora and Sing (2009) has explained that situations of financial secrecy exists when financial institutions refuse to disclose crucial financial information to the appropriate authorities for tax decision making and other criminal law enforcement policies. In effect, a higher scoring on financial secrecy index is a negative indication for satisfactory financial transparency. Meanwhile according to the Tax Justice Network (2011), the scoring for Bahamas in financial transparency is 83%, indicating an unacceptable level of secrecy and suppression of views. From the graph below, it will be noted that from a 15 financial secrecy indicator, Bahamas scored negative marks for most of the i ndicators. Source: Tax Justice Network (2011) For investors wanting to choose Bahamas as a preferred entity to use to raise capital for Intel Corporation prior to doing an IPO, the risk of not knowing the legitimate financial values and figures for most indicators that will be necessary for taking stock market decisions prevails (Breiman et al, 2009). Having stated the above however, it is important to stress the point that new policies and reforms have started emerging in Bahamas that make incumbent upon the country to have a free economy and exchange information as specified in Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) guidelines (Riyadh, Akter and Islam, 2009). Proximity to US Proximity has always been said to be an important factor in the determination of an offshore financial center destination for raising capital for Intel Corporation ahead of an initial public offer. This is because most offshore companies that operate in offshore financial centers do so b y operating parent companies that govern and run the key organizational