Harding

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Globalization made it possible for businesses to market their products and services and form partnerships around the world, but it didn’t eliminate the challenges and frustrations that companies must deal with when expanding internationally.

Enter High Street Partners Inc. – an Annapolis, Md.-based firm that offers a portfolio of services designed to help U.S.-based firms expand overseas while reducing taxes and regulatory risks.

The four-year-old company specializes in helping its clients understand the complexity of international finance. Its services range from simple tasks, such as arranging the hiring of a worker in India, to more challenging assignments like managing an entire business unit.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a software company in California that wants to set up shop in India or an equipment manufacturer in Massachusetts that wants to expand to China – we’ll do what it takes to make sure that you’re ready before you enter that market,” Larry Harding, High Street Partners founder and chief executive officer, said. “But it’s not just legal and tax issues that pose problems for companies – we also help our clients overcome obstacles like cultural differences and even time zones.”

Harding – formerly the vice president of international finance for Ciena Corporation, a Linthicum, Md.-based company that develops and markets communications-network platforms and software and offers professional services – founded High Street Partners in 2003.

The firm targets mid- and small-sized corporations and venture-backed start-ups, but also serves publicly traded corporations like Sapient, a Cambridge, Mass.-based consulting firm that employs 5,000 people worldwide. High Street Partners also sources its customers from venture firms – it has landed numerous clients from Matrix Partners, Atlas Ventures and Charles River Ventures, all of which are headquartered in Waltham, Mass.

In just over three years, the firm has amassed a client base exceeding 90 companies in more than 40 countries by utilizing a worldwide network of 75 local service providers. The latter enables High Street Partners to specifically tailor its services to suit the needs – and budget – of each client.

The company charges a one-time fee that covers project assessment and entity set-up and registrations; fixed fees then cover international payrolls and payroll taxes, monthly accounting preparation, local statutory financial statement filings, audit requirements and compliance with local income tax laws. Clients typically pay between $2,000 and $3,500 per month, depending on the level of service required.

"High-tech companies can run into major problems overseas, mainly because they don’t know the rules," Harding said. "Some countries are easier to enter than others – Hong Kong was built on a foundation for Western companies to operate on so it is the gateway to Asia – but in China, the government can seize a company’s assets, and the Latin American nations can also be very risky. Even the European Union countries have tough laws that companies can run afoul of very easily.”

Those were some of the obstacles that executives at Raleigh, N.C.-based software company Relativity Technologies Inc. wanted to avoid when they decided in early 2006 that the time was right to establish a subsidiary in India. They tapped High Street Partners for guidance and in May, successfully launched Relativity Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. in Chennai.

	Mirchandani

“We made a decision last year to set up an operation in India simply because of the immense potential of the Indian market,” Jaideep Mirchandani, Relativity Technologies vice president and general manager, said recently while in India. “There is so much outsourcing going on there, and we felt it was really important to be in India, so we turned to High Street Partners for help. They made sure we did everything we needed to do legally in order to set up a business in India. They have been a tremendous asset for us, as we continue to work with them.”

The rapid growth High Street Partners has enjoyed since its launch illustrates the demand among small and early-stage companies for guidance before entering a foreign market.

According to a survey in the November 2005 issue of Inc. Magazine, 46 percent of the 500 fastest-growing American companies reported having customers in a foreign nation, 24 percent said they had a satellite office outside of the United States, and 35 percent reported increased international sales since 2003, with 6 percent of sales coming from outside the United States.

For Relativity Technologies, the decision to go with High Street Partners as part of the company’s expansion to India proved to be a smart one. Though there are many similarities between the South Asian nation and the United States – the Indian government was modeled on that of Great Britain and it continues to relax barriers to foreign investors – other obstacles remain.

“There are a lot of things going for companies that want to establish a presence in India, such as the English language and how the government is set up,” Mirchandani said. “But Indian tax laws are not as clear and simple as they are in the United States, and a lot of them are interpreted simply through audits or raw precedent. In India, the legal framework changes so quickly that you need to have local expertise in structuring a business. High Street Partners helped navigate through these laws and they have been very helpful in making sure we adhere to the Indian legal system.”