Holland in Michigan has been ranked the best US small city in which to start a business – a fact that might even grab attention of wealth management professionals looking to get a firm off the launch pad.
WalletHub, a personal finance website, has looked at tests such as investor access and ease of financing – 18 metrics in all – to work out the best places to start a firm. It compared more than 1,200 cities with fewer than 100,000 residents.
Behind Holland, Michigan, comes St George, in Utah, followed by Fort Myers in Florida. A concern for the traditional financial hub areas of New York and California is that neither state features in the top 20. While both areas have a large number of HNW individuals, large networks of potential clients and a supply of advisors, their high regulations and relatively heavy tax burdens may weigh against them.
Among findings from the website’s poll of business owners, seven out of 10 said that now is a good time for businesses to grow. Only 23 per cent of them said they will use savings from the 2017 tax changes to pay for investor/executive bonuses.
Source: WalletHub