With CAs in demand around the world, more and more accountants are heading overseas, often combining their work with a love of sailing. 
 
Story Tony Malkovic 
 
Michelle Penalurick CA was in for a very pleasant surprise when she first went sailing off Bermuda earlier this year. The water and beaches actually looked every bit as good as the photos in all the glossy tourist promotions, maybe even better. 
 
“It was absolutely gorgeous, the turquoise colour of the water was beautiful. It was like nothing I’ve seen anywhere else,” recalls Penalurick. “I’d always assumed the tourist photos of Bermuda had been touched up, but no they hadn’t. The beaches really are the pink that you see in the photos. Apparently, it’s from the little creatures that live on the coral. As they die, their skeletons break down and form our pink sand.” 
 
Penalurick has been working as a CA in Bermuda for the past couple of months, having come from NSW. Bermuda might be small – it only covers 53 sq km and has a population of about 65,000 – but it has some big attractions for Aussie Chartered Accountants who want to work overseas. The tiny British territory has established itself as a busy international offshore financial hub with many international insurance firms working from there. But probably just as alluring is the lifestyle, especially if you like sailing and diving. 
 
Penalurick never sailed back home in Australia, but she’s determined to make up for it in her new posting. 
 
“I intend to learn to sail while I am here and it was on the plus side of the ledger when I was looking at Bermuda as a place to live,” she says. “I just never seemed to have the time and money to learn in Sydney. I’m also learning scuba diving and want to take up underwater photography.” She says even if you’re a relatively inexperienced yachtsperson, people are always on the lookout for crew members. 
 
“They have some serious races on the weekends, but they also have some not-so-serious racing on Wednesday evenings,” says Penalurick. “One of my colleagues was looking for someone to start crewing/sailing with them, so I probably will start up with them. A lot of our work is in the States, and a lot of people have to disappear at short notice, so the boats actually have more than a normal size crew.” 
 
Penalurick says back in Australia she was working for one of the Big 4 firms on Sarbanes Oxley implementation advisory projects, and Bermuda was a natural progression. 
 
“I spent a lot of time in the Asia-Pacific region, so I felt I needed to move a bit further afield this time. Bermuda is expanding its already huge financial industry, so there are lots of opportunities here,” she says. “For me professionally, the advisory business I have joined here is developing into new areas so I have been able to be involved in its creation, which I would not have been able to do if I had stayed in Sydney.” 
 
According to Kevin Moultrie, Penalurick’s story is not an uncommon one for Aussie CAs wanting to combine overseas work and a love of water. 
 
“Bermuda is obviously an exciting destination for people to maximise their personal interests while at the same time getting some really good professional growth and development for their career,” he says. 
 
Moultrie is a regional associate director with Think Global Recruitment, which specialises in worldwide recruitment for the accounting and finance professions. “At any one time, we have up to 200 vacancies for CAs just for Bermuda alone,” he says. “Our clients say if you can find us 20 or 30 audit seniors, audit managers or tax specialists at a time we’d take them.” He says the stunning beaches and waters might lure tourists, but as far as CAs are concerned, crunching the numbers can also be very attractive. 
 
Stepping Stone 
“Bermuda is one of those offshore tax havens,” he points out. It has a small population but there’s a high requirement for professional skills because there’s a large number of international corporations that have registered their head office offshore for tax reasons, they need to bring in good quality skills. 
 
“It’s a very good stepping stone for greater international experience in areas where people wouldn’t typically get that experience if they remained in Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane or Perth. “The typical contracts we have for our clients request people for between two and four years. You quite often get people who, after two years of the island life, want to move on or transfer their skills to another location.” And when they do decide to set sail from Bermuda, there are other yachting hotspots that need CAs. 
 
“We’ve got about 12 or 13 sailing hotspots around the globe that we’re currently recruiting for,” Moultrie explains. “Bermuda is a key location for our Top Four clients who typically look for strong audit experience in the insurance/re-insurance area.  
 
“The Cayman Islands are very, very strong for financial services – banking,mutual funds, captive insurance. Over 70,000 corporations have their companies incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Again, it’s a tax-free area and there’s a huge requirement for financial services specialists in the Cayman Islands,” says Moultrie. “You’ve also got the British Virgin Islands, which are part of the Caribbean, and the Bahamas as well. Then if you move over to the Channel Islands – between France and England – you have Guernsey and Jersey which are very strong for audit and tax specialists. The companies up there are typically your Big Four or mid-tier chartered accounting firms and a couple of the big financial services companies. 
 
“And you’ve got the Isle of Man which is based between the UK and Ireland – but it’s colder and it’s the ‘brave’ sailors who go up to there. Then there’s also Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand.” 
 
But back in Bermuda, working from an office not far from those pink beaches and turquoise waters, Penalurick says she probably has the best of it. And her advice to others is to navigate overseas if you get the chance. 
 
“I’d definitely recommend going for it,” she says. “It is especially easy when you’re young and single as there isn’t a partner who could put pressure on you to leave if they aren’t happy. I have seen a few international transfers cut short because the integration of their partner into the new country isn’t managed well.” 
 
People should also keep a weather eye out for the economics of living on the other side of the world. 
 
“Technically it’s no taxes here, but there are payroll taxes and various other health insurance deductibles that come out, so it works out equivalent to about a 10 per cent tax rate,” she says. “The wages are better than in Australia, but then the cost of living – such as accommodation – is higher.” 
 
But overall, it’s not a tough choice: “Definitely do it. I didn’t come over before I came here. But it’s very easy to pick up and settle in here. It’s a lovely place to live and work.” 
 
Charting your own course  
When you do get the urge to weigh anchor and leave Australia, it pays to carefully chart your career prospects and your next port of call so you know how to take advantage of what’s on offer. And how you like to spend your time out of the office is often the key to a successful posting. 
 
“When we’re interviewing candidates, part of the interviewing process for us is to look at not just what skills they’ve acquired or developed, but also to look at their hobbies and interests because that’s what clients look for,” explains Moultrie. 
 
“It’s logical that if someone has water sports or sailing on their CV, then there’s an opportunity that we can promote them to those locations that have very similar interests.” 
 
He says employers in other countries are very keen to make sure their new employees settle in quickly, and nothing beats being prepared  
 
“The key things that people need to think about when they’re upping and moving offshore is that they need to take in the culture, the customs, the lifestyle, look into what the cost of living is going to be and the tax rates, etc,” he explains. 
 
“Quite often when you’re gong to Bermuda and zero tax, you’ve got to look at the offset, which is typically accommodation is a lot more expensive. 
 
“One of the things that we suggest is that people do a lot of research about the environment that they’re thinking of going to. They can jump on the Internet, they can read travel books, and they can talk to recruitment consultancies that specialise in international recruitment. 
 
“One of the other things we recommend is for potential movers to talk to people who are already in those locations through their current networks and contacts.” 
 
To help lure CAs overseas, firms are offering incentives such as competitive salaries and bonus structures not available in Australia. 
 
“They typically offer airfares to fly over and take up the position; a shipping allowance to allow the candidate to ship over a number of their personal items; and candidates typically get two to four weeks’ accommodation on arrival to allow them to set up and find more long-term accommodation,” Moultrie says. 
 
“Some companies – such as in Bermuda – actually offer tax-free loans. They always offer ongoing training and development, and even pay their airfares home at the end of the contract and they obviously offer a very good social club environment, as well as subsidised medical health schemes. “They really do work hard to offer a welcoming and positive environment for employees to kick-start their careers in the islands.” 
 
Global Mobile Teams  
Moultrie says generally Aussie CAs travel well, and that at any given time some 6500 are working overseas.  
 
“What we’re finding is that many of the big international firms, especially the Big 4, the mid-tier CA firms and the big financial services companies, have even set up their own global mobility teams,” he says. 
 
“So that once the candidate is appointed, the documentation goes to them and they handle all the visa requirements, all the shipping, airfares, accommodation and all the introductory tax set-up for the arrival and even pre-arrival,” he says. “So it’s a very smart, very smooth transition. And that everything’s done with maximum efficiency. Because at the end of the day, you might have some 30employees from around the world starting work on the same day in Bermuda. 
 
“You can imagine some of these young CAs, 25-35 years old, single with no particular ties to Australia, and they’re ready to up anchor and learn a new culture and customs, it is an exciting time for them.” 
 
Sailing hotspots 
Interested in combining your career as a CA with overseas experience and your love of sailing? Then here are some ports of call you might be interested in checking out. 
 
Bermuda 
The Bermuda islands lie about 1800km north-east of Miami in the North Atlantic. Actually a British offshore territory, Bermuda consists of about 138 coral islands, and a seafaring tradition that dates back to the early 16th century when Spanish and Portuguese ships visited the islands. Bermuda was eventually settled in 1609 by shipwrecked English colonists bound for Virginia, an incident which – by some accounts 
– inspired Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. And indeed, that shipwrecked vessel still features on Bermuda’s coat of arms. Nowadays, Bermuda is more renowned for the prestigious Newport-Bermuda yacht race, as well as the International Bermuda International Invitational Race Week, an annual event that draws skippers from around the world. For more information, try the Bermuda Sailing Association at bermudasail.bm and the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, rbyc.bm 
 
Cayman Islands 
Located in the Caribbean, the waters of the Cayman Islands are renowned not just for sailing but also some of the best scuba diving in the world. Cayman consists of three islands – Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The economy used to be based on turtling, but now it has become one of the world’s leading offshore financial services hub, with more than 70,000 companies registered there. With no direct taxation, Caymanians have one of the highest standards of living in the world. Christopher Columbus sailed to the Cayman Islands, so did Sir Francis Drake  
 
– and you can go sailing there, too. To find out more, go to caymanislands.ky and the Cayman Island Sailing Club at sailing.ky 
 
Channel Islands  
The Channel Islands are a group of British dependencies including the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, just off the coast of Normandy, France. 
 
Over the past 40 years, these two islands have developed into significant financial centres (banking funds management and insurance) and as well as an island lifestyle, residents enjoy a personal tax rate of only 20 per cent. 
 
To check out the sailing opportunities, visit jersey.com/active or seaguernsey.com 
 
New Zealand  
To get a feel for New Zealanders’ love of sailing, you only need visit Auckland, the City of Sails, which was the venue for the America’s Cup in 2000 and 2003. 
 
And to see just how good Kiwi yachtsmen are, you only have to look at their big showing in this year’s America’s Cup being contested off the Spanish coast at Valencia. Of the 12 teams competing for the Auld Mug, three are skippered by Kiwis: Brad Butterworth (defender Alinghi), Chris Dickson (BMW Racing Oracle), and Dean Barker (Emirates Team New Zealand). To dip your toes in the water online, go to aucklandnz.com or wellingtonnz.com