Foreign Franchisee question

[tim.solomonson]

In the simplest terms, I am a United States resident who is planning on moving to Singapore to start a Importing franchise (I would be the franchisee) in the next 6-12month. This is a co-venture with a partner who is peeling off an existing export company in the US that services foreign markets, wanting to get into Singapore. Have any of you done this, or know someone that has done something similar? I have a lot of questions on the process, mostly regulatory related and potentially would be willing to pay a fee for some extended consultation through the process....assuming its possible. Again I want to clarify, I am not selling a franchise to someone in Singapore, and I am not a Singaporean resident looking to buy into a franchine...there is copious amounts of literature and government boiler plate for that....I am sort of a hybrid. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Strong Eagle]

I would refer you first to my old thread on the Entrepass which has been updated. In short, you're not going to get an Entrepass so you're going to need to form a company using a resident director who applies for an EP for you. This post contains quite a bit of background information as well as comments by others about company formation.

viewtopic.php?t=93619

As I have noted in the threads below, people have gone this route with success. You need to be able to convince MOM that you are not a scam artist, forming a business that will almost certainly fail, just so that you can legally get into Singapore. I judge, based upon the comments of people who have been successful in going this route, you will need, at a minimum:

a) Experience and a track record in the business you intend to operate.

b) Evidence that you have a business that just wants to move to Singapore, or, evidence of contracts, clients, or evidence of high probability that you will get contracts and clients.

c) A well formed business plan including an analysis of the market, your sales strategy, your logistics strategy and suppliers, your competition, local hiring, and your customers.

d) Pro forma financials that show anticipated revenues and expenses plus your break even point at which your business will support you.

e) Evidence of sufficient cash/loans to start your business, run it to profitability, and support yourself in Singapore.

It used to be with the Entrepass that business plans are reviewed by Spring, Singapore's small business development entity, and they may continue to do so with these types of applications. Thus, it is essential that whatever you do propose is coherent, logical, and reasonable, or the folks at Spring will poke all kinds of holes in it.

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=104511

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=104519 (page 2 mainly)