Pete1516 Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 Hello, I am 47 and interested in moving my family (with 2 kids 3 & 8 yrs) to Australia, which of course has become extremely difficult since passing 45 I believe. However I have a few things going for me (us), so I'm trawling the immi site, the web, forums, contacts and investment companies to find out if there is any way to do it that won't be too risky financially. Till now I've been looking at the 188/132 visas since we have enough assets to be able to fulfil some of the lower investment classes, but it seems that my business or investment history is probably not sound enough for them. So since I am interested in setting up a new business soon anyway, here (UK) or Australia, I am wondering about the 482. I have been in software engineering for 20 years, and was one of 6 founders of a company sold for around £100M ten years ago (please note my equity stake was by sale time very minor, we were all diluted by the time of sale to a great degree by the incoming capital that got us to that point). I was the CTO so have reasonable credentials in the field from that. But since then, after a 3 year earn out, I left and semi retired (on the profits) to care for my parents who were both disabled by then and have since died. So I have done nothing in my field for about 7 years. As I said I would like to set up a new business, maybe it would be classified as entrepreneurial. The exact nature of it would depend where I am, although there will always be a software component to it. One example I am currently working on with limited application in the (wet) UK is an automation system for fertigation, that is the drip watering and simultaneous fertilisation of crops - a common practice but one which is still mostly manually controlled. Automated systems are available with various degrees of intelligence but for anything with even a modicum of intelligence prices are prohibitive for small scale growers. My feeling is that there is space for an open source software solution to this, supported by cheaply available, ideally generic hardware already available at very low cost, to allow small scale growers to start using this technology and invest in it progressively. Theres a lot of room here for advanced techniques to preserve water, reduce pollution of leached nutrients (IE reduce fertiliser runoff into rivers etc), and increase quality and quantity of crops. As well as saving labour and allowing farming without constant human presence. I'm currently running a 'prototype' system like this at home in the UK, supplying custom nutrient balances to individual zones where small quantities of different crops are planted, just to see how it goes. Anyway thats probably too much detail already but I hope to give an idea of the sort of business I would be proposing. My question is, what kind of business are the Australian immigration department interested in and does the type of thing outlined above seem to fit? And if I was taking such a business over to Australia would self sponsorship be viable or is that reserved for a different type of situation? TIA, Pete Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulhand Posted July 10, 2020 Share Posted July 10, 2020 Self sponsorship is not really possible any more. There might be one or two niche routes - but you should seek some professional guidance based on your specific skills and situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VERYSTORMY Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 Speak to an agent. Though it is all a bit moot at the moment as Australia has closed its borders and isn’t expect to open up till mid next year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete1516 Posted July 11, 2020 Author Share Posted July 11, 2020 Thanks to you both - what type of agent / professional is most suited to this situation? I have been discussing with a UK based agent, but his best suggestion is the 132 (b, I believe) via an investor type scheme. I have spoken to the scheme manager. It involves my investing in a 2 year old or so business out in Australia and getting instant PR apparently, but the investment must be more than 50% of the value of the company (so I'm essentially buying it), and be more than $1M AUD. The costs from the investment company come to about $200k. But risking that amount in a company I don't know much about and have little interest in, and the costs, is less appealing when I have my own plans business wise, and the funding I need for it. No agent has mentioned any other possibilities and until a few days ago I didn't even realise there were other visas with no 45 year age limit. So finding the 482 was interesting but I guess self sponsorship would be the only way to do it. What is the problem with the self sponsorship aspect - just refused at application time, not invited in the first place? If you don't mind saying, what kind of niches has it been applied to recently? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VERYSTORMY Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 Why not give Paul a call who replied above and is one of the most respected agents out there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marisawright Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 11 hours ago, Pete1516 said: Thanks to you both - what type of agent / professional is most suited to this situation? You need a MARA registered migration agent. Paul Hand, who replied to your post, has a good reputation. The 482 visa is a relatively recent visa, which replaced the old 457. The 457 had a self-sponsorship option. Being so new, there's not much track record for 482 applications, but I believe the requirements for self-sponsorship set the bar so high it's almost unachievable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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