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Today’s episode welcomes an extraordinary guest, Matt Sumner, 
founder of Outbound Investment and a leading voice in the world of global wealth strategies. With over 15 years of experience and a unique journey that started in Shanghai and spanned more than 60 countries, Matt has guided over 30,000 advisors and clients through the complex landscape of international investing, tax optimization, and asset protection.
Matt’s expertise is built from firsthand experience—from learning Mandarin in China to collaborating with top-tier solution providers worldwide. He brings a fresh, boots-on-the-ground perspective on how the world’s wealthiest families diversify, protect, and even future-proof their portfolios and lifestyles against political, financial, and technological changes.
In this enlightening conversation, Matt unpacks the growing desire for international mobility, dual citizenship, and Plan B strategies among entrepreneurs, investors, and families—especially in the wake of COVID-19’s impact on global freedom and mobility. He offers an approachable breakdown of his four-pillar framework: mobility, tax, asset protection, and global investment, helping listeners rethink how to create true financial sovereignty and resilience.
Whether you’re concerned about overreliance on your home country’s systems, seeking international diversification, or preparing for future uncertainties, Matt’s practical advice sheds light on actionable steps to start globalizing your wealth today.
In This Episode
- Why second residencies and global citizenship are on the rise among North Americans
- The essentials of international asset protection and legal structures
- Practical ways to diversify assets and hedge against systemic risks
- How family offices and investors can adapt to a rapidly changing world with AI and global shifts
You kind of have to have a fairly long view as to what you want to do with your asset protection to answer some of those questions. But some of them are very personal. So if you start with the personal questions first, that’s what I would say.
Welcome to the Wealth Strategy Secrets Of The Ultra Wealthy Podcast, where we help entrepreneurs like you exponentially build wealth through passive income to live a life of freedom and prosperity. Are you tired of paying too much in taxes, gambling your future on the stock market, and want to learn about hidden strategies for making your money work for you? And now your host, Dave Wolcop, serial entrepreneur and author of the best-selling book The Holistic Wealth Strategy.
Hey guys, welcome to another episode on wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Today, we’re diving into a topic that’s becoming increasingly relevant for entrepreneurs, investors, and families looking to truly future-proof their wealth. International investing and global mobility. I’m joined by Matt Sumner, founder of Outbound Investment, who spent the last 15-plus years helping over 30,000 advisors and their clients structure global strategies to protect their capital, optimize taxes, and unlock international freedom. From learning Mandarin and launching his career in Shanghai to working with best-in-class solution providers across 60 countries, Matt brings a rare boots-on-the-ground perspective of how the world’s wealth families are hedging against risk, political, financial, and even technological.
In this episode, we cover why the demand for second residencies and global citizenships has surged post-COVID Covid how to diversify and protect your wealth internationally through structures like trusts, foreign real estate, and multiple currencies. The real risks of relying too heavily on one’s country’s financial system or political environment, and how AI and geopolitical shifts are transforming the global family office landscape. And lastly, practical strategies to set up your own Plan B using MAT’s four-pillar framework, mobility, tax, asset protection, and global investment.
Whether you’re thinking about dual citizenship, concerned about the US dollar, or simply want to understand how to create true financial sovereignty, this conversation will challenge your thinking and open up new possibilities. And now onto the show.
Matt, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Dave.
Yeah, you bet. And for the listeners out there, just hopefully you’ll be a little bit patient with us through this recording. Matt is currently based in Portugal, so just getting through the entire blackout that they had in Europe in terms of Internet connectivity. But he’s joining us here from Portugal today, so really excited to have him on the show and really open up this whole international investing. How to be thinking about that? How to be thinking about international mobility and all those things that I think aren’t really commonly understood out there, kind of in the marketplace. What are some of the pros, and what are some of the cons? And not only from an investing standpoint, but from a lifestyle standpoint, I’m certainly a believer in the European lifestyle and a lot of the values, frankly, that I think European cultures have, that we have a lot to learn from. Right. Things such as family and spending quality time, and quality food.
Right. Some of those amazing experiences that are really, truly interwoven in the fabric of Europe, that I think the US has an opportunity to jump into. So with that being said, Matt, welcome to the show. And why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about your background and what led you to get into this space in the first place?
Absolutely. So thanks again, Dave. I left the United States when I was 21, and from a very young age, I wanted to see the world, and I wanted to learn multiple languages. So I actually started my first overseas adventure in mainland China back in 2006. And so I first learned Mandarin Chinese on the ground there. And after that I was working for a financial media group in Shanghai and I came across a financial center called the Seychelles, which in the United States, most investors there would probably have heard of places like the British Virgin Islands or Cayman, Cayman Islands, these places which are often used as investment structuring jurisdictions. And this opened my eyes to a whole world of, I would say, how the financial and business elite, you know, operate on a global scale to move capital to protect their wealth, to really just preserve their interests on a global scale in countries and jurisdictions that are very investor-friendly. And so that’s, that’s how that journey started.
And the reason that I have outbound is that there was a period of time in China where China really opened up to the world and allowed Chinese capital to start moving more freely. If you were a private investor, and I knew at that time, because I spoke fluent Mandarin, that they were going to need a lot of help. And so I went about assembling a network of global solution providers that could help the Chinese move their capital, do investments overseas, set up corporate structures, set up overseas trusts, these things that most successful business people or wealthy families would have come across at one point or another. And 15 years later, I’ve now traveled somewhere around 600,000 kilometers, visited 60-plus countries, and anywhere that has great legislation for asset protection, tax optimization, and global mobility. I’m dealing firsthand with the best-in-class solution providers from around the world. So that’s A short version of the story, but in total we’ve, we’ve helped over 30,000 advisors and their clients to globalize themselves and globalize their wealth.
Yeah, that’s awesome, Matt. And are you really working cross-border? So are you working for international clients. Right. That have citizenship outside of the US as well as US Citizens?
Yeah, so we are nationality agnostic. So there’s not a specific nationality that someone has to have in order to work with us. But I would say that in the past five years, North American clients have really taken center stage. And that really started primarily because of COVID. And for the first time, Americans realized what it was like not to have freedom, mobility. You know, so, the stay at home orders and the visa cancellation with the European Union, all of the Caribbean was, was closed, you know, to non-nationals and non-residents. And I think a lot of people had had time at that point to really take a long view of how hard they were working, how much tax they were paying, and then having their mobility taken away. I think it really led a lot of on. I know it led a lot of entrepreneurs and families to really second-guess their whole life setup.
And then with the advent of remote working because of COVID, people started to realize, well, I could actually do this from Portugal, or I could do this from the Caribbean, or I could do most of my job from anywhere else. And so in the country that I’m sitting in now, they’ve seen a 500% increase in inbound American residents just in the past five years. There are now 9 million Americans who live overseas. That’s like 3% of our population is now living overseas.
Wow, that’s, that’s really amazing. Well, I think for the listeners, what we should do is try to break this down into, you know, it seems to me, maybe like two subsets of the discussion. So one I think is just, you know, mobility, international mobility. Right. And the ins and outs of kind of try to do that. And then the next piece of it is really like, how do you manage your wealth from an international standpoint? You know, and especially right now, really curious about your thoughts around, you know, tariffs, and there’s so much going on from a global standpoint.
Right. So how do investors really diversify and really maybe start to think about, you know, getting some type of international exposure, you know, whether that be, you know, real estate or just, you know, maybe it’s even currency denomination. And then also talk about the, you know, typical structures you might help recommend people for.
Yeah, sure. So I’ll talk about these things in, let’s say, general terms. Each investor, given which nationality they hold, given which location they spend the majority of their time, the makeup of their family members, what nationalities they hold, there’s a lot of nuance to these things. So it’s very important that you’re working with qualified professionals from those jurisdictions, which all the people that we work with are all the best in class from their countries. The second thing is American citizens in particular, and also Canada, there are specific taxation rules that people need to be aware of and you absolutely need to be working with a tax advisor who understands the local tax laws to make sure that your international plans are compliant and you don’t end up in a situation that causes you more headache than removes.
So with that being said, the whole idea of if we want to talk about mobility, this has not ever really been considered as, for most, most North Americans as a fundamental element of how they plan their wealth protection or their wealth optimization or their life setup. And what I encourage the people listening to this podcast to think about is if you were to buy an insurance plan for your house in case of fire, in case of flood, in case of any number of disasters, or in the case of a life event where if someone were to pass away early, you would want to have your life insurance plan, you would want to have your fire insurance plan, your flood insurance, you would want to have that way before such an event happens. And what I encourage people to think about in terms of global mobility, if the country that you live in passes laws that directly affect you as a national or resident of that country, and you need to move for whatever reason, as Americans found out during COVID because of the stay at home orders that drastically impacted people’s lives, you would need to have a backup plan, an insurance plan in place before that.
Fortunately for Americans, as most of them are of European descent, most Americans have been gifted an opportunity to potentially get a passport from their ancestors through their lineage. And that’s an easy win. In the absence of that, having at least one alternative residency and/or an alternative nationality, I think of for anyone who has the idea that they, that they may need it at some point, which I believe is most people, that’s something that they should put in place. And I would say that’s probably the first thing you should put in place before you think about, you know, how to protect your wealth across borders or tax planning across borders or any of those things. Figure out your mobility options first, and then everything else follows after that. So we look at it in pillars. So we usually plan for mobility first, then we plan for tax, then we plan for asset protection, and then investment opportunities.
Okay. No, I like that structure. And is there any threshold, right, from maybe a net worth perspective or maybe the complexity of your life or something that you should be really thinking about that? I mean, I know a lot of billionaires, right? I mean, half of them are buying yachts. Not only for you to know the sporting aspect of it, but also for that mobility aspect. Right. And you know, some people aren’t agreeing with certain politics. Right. It’s gotten very confrontational in the US. So are people looking for mobility for that? Are they looking for mobility for lifestyle, you know, or do you look to mobility because you’re trying to, you know, diversify and hedge in case something happens? Really?
Yeah. I think there’s a fairly long list of reasons why people, North Americans, would do that. The most common ones that we hear are that they have issues with the political divide. They have issues with being forced to choose sides on so many different big issues, whether it’s politics, whether it’s issues related to gender, whether it’s issues related to race, or whether it’s issues related to women’s rights. Those are, are big factors because I think they no longer see themselves as part of a society that is being so divided on many issues. They find themselves somewhere in the more moderate view, and they don’t want to be pulled to one side or the other. That’s a very common one. The second one is safety.
So, America in the past five to seven years, I believe, has maintained a mass shooting rate of over 600 mass shootings per year. Now we’re talking about mass shootings where five or more people are injured or killed. If you compare that to all mass shootings in the history of the European Union, since statistics have been held, I think you can choose any year of the past five, and you’ve exceeded the entire sum of mass shootings that have ever happened across continental Europe since we’ve been alive. Save wars and things like that. So, you know, these are things that I think that people have taken for granted as just being part of normal everyday. You know, it happens on the news on a regular basis. But I can tell you this is, this is an outlier in the world. This is not the norm in most of, let’s just say, the civilized world.
So it’s very. Yeah, it’s very, very interesting. So those are two things. The third one, tax, it does tend to come up because there are Certain jurisdictions that are very highly taxed. Also, when it comes to inheritance and wealth transfer, there’s some massive implications depending on your residence and your nationality. So those are also big motivators.
Yeah, no, quite a whole host of issues. Right. And I could see it really kind of boils down to your preference. Now, how about from a wealth perspective? Right. Are you thinking about, I mean, you know, you talked about the one pillar of asset protection, but let’s talk about maybe wealth from a diversification standpoint. Right. Does it make sense to have some exposure, right? To you know, some of these international currencies or having your capital in different markets, you know, entirely. Or different countries, different assets, like, say, real estate.
Right.
In different countries. How are you, kind of, you know, what are you recommending for clients there?
Yeah. So I’ll talk from a global perspective on just risk diversification. So for our lifetime, up until this point, a US-denominated investment, US dollar-denominated investment strategy has been a very good one. We can see that geopolitics is in the shift of economic power, that there are significant forces trying to pull that power away from the US dollar. So I had the pleasure of hosting a fireside chat with the founder of the New York Family Office Association just a month ago. And the things that the billionaires and the centimillionaires and the millionaires are talking about are how do we not just ensure that we’re diversified across, let’s say, our U.S. investments or Canadian investments,
How do we diversify against systemic risks like the potential downfall of the US dollar or a collapse of a particular real estate market, or a collapse of a particular equities market? And how do you shift that around in different markets globally to ensure that you’re hedged across geographies due to systemic risks of the country or the region? And that is a very big topic. And then a big one that people are not talking about is how to, how to deal with family wealth in the era of AI because whatever your family’s legacy was built on in terms of the businesses that you ran, the structure that you set up for the family, the family office, the governance of the family, that is going to be drastically.
It’s not going to be the same model that works when the world’s wealthiest families are using AI that most of us haven’t even seen yet. We’re talking about some very crazy things that you can do with AI that very, very few people know about, because a lot of it’s already being controlled by some of the world’s wealthiest families. So there are some very interesting things that I think are going to show up in wealth planning in the next three to five years that people should start thinking about now.
The global landscape is changing fast . Are you prepare to shift with it?
Wow, that’s fascinating. Any insights you can give us on how to kind of think that way?
In terms of the overall risk diversification. Just to say what most of your readers probably, or most of your listeners can probably understand is if you were just to look at a very simple chart of the US dollar versus the euro over the past five years, and you can see the fluctuations just across those two currencies and some other major currency baskets, you can see that the volatility and the way that the US Dollar is fluctuating against some of these other asset classes.
If you have a billion dollars or 100 million or $10 million in US-denominated assets and it loses 10 to 15% against any other major currency, I mean, that’s a risk that you should be planning. That’s a risk that you should be planning for because who knows, if that’s the bottom. If any of these other world powers are successful at de-dollarizing the world economy, then you should be pretty sure that the value of the US dollar is going to drop. And if you have significant wealth, that’s something you have to be planning for. That’s the currency side.
Yeah, no, I definitely, I’m with you there. But one thing I think is interesting, I mean, I think I’ve heard Ray Dalio or some people talk about this analogy of, right. We’re not the dirtiest sock in the. Right. So even though the US isn’t doing well, the dollar isn’t doing well right now. Right. If you look at, and you know, some of these countries, Portugal, Italy, we can go through the entire EU right now. Actually, even the UK has been having considerable challenges, you know, economically of late.
So I, you know, I’m not necessarily convinced that the, you know, euro is necessarily a safe haven. And then if you look at Asia, you know, what’s going on there. Right. I, I’m not so sure I’d want to be placing capital Right. As you know, in Asia specifically, right now. So, you know what, what are your thoughts around that? Right. Relative to. I agree with your statement that, you know, the U.S. dollar could potentially, you know, come down by 10%. Right. But are you hedging with other things like, you know, a gold commodities crypto, and Bitcoin, or is it, you know, currency specific?
Yeah. So on the investment advice side, we usually leave that up to the asset managers to put together the portfolio. Just from a personal, let’s just say from a personal perspective, I think having multiple major currencies, having real estate assets in multiple markets. So if you want to talk about safe haven markets, tier one European cities, tier one American cities that are relatively recession-proof, I think those are some pretty basic things that most people can do, most people who have the financial means can do.
In terms of crypto, I think if you’ve been watching crypto for a few cycles now, you can see that we’re pretty far down the adoption curve in terms of even institutional money getting behind it. And so, I think the idea that crypto is going to go away, that that ship has, you know, kind of sailed. I won’t say Bitcoin yes, Ethereum no, or anything like that, but most investors that I talk to and most investors that we work with through asset managers do have, have crypto exposure at this point. And of course, it comes down to risk tolerance. You know, how much, how much are you willing to put at risk? Because of the upside potential, but also the downside is very large.
Yeah, no great points on that for sure. I think, you know, typically, you know, the data points I’ve gotten with family offices to date, around 1 to 3% allocation in crypto and maybe that’s, you know, split between Bitcoin and Ethereum, maybe Solana now or some other things depending on your, you know, belief system. But it definitely seems to be increasing, and then there’s obviously all kinds of other plays like infrastructure as well to support the energy demands there, I think, are going to be huge. Like all of the data centers that are responsible for really supporting that, and really frankly, the AI movement and those things are definitely cross-border type assets.
Very much so. And I’ll just make one observation, I’ll make one observation just about, you know, economic power. And so you, you made an, you alluded to some, some things in, in Asia, and whether or not you would want to invest there right now. So, during the early 2000s and probably even before that, the 1990s, China had been labeled as a country that all they knew how to do was copy. But I can tell you firsthand that China is producing some of the most fantastic electric vehicles on the planet right now. And in terms of AI, I think most people probably caught the news of their AI, their large language model, which significantly outperformed ChatGPT on many different fronts. And so I think while you might have some reservations about a particular currency or what have you. You know, we’re playing on a global stage now, and some people are.
Some countries that you didn’t think, that people didn’t think had the power to be huge economic powers, I think, are really showing how strong and how far they’ve come in a very short period of time. So, yeah, not counting anyone out, no matter what hemisphere they’re from, I think at this point would be a pretty smart way to look at the global portfolio.
So, Matt, tell us from an asset protection standpoint. I know a lot of people are familiar with things like the British Virgin Islands, you know, or maybe setting up some of those international asset protection trusts. You know, there are countries like Switzerland and Liechtenstein that have certain structures. So, how should people be thinking about protecting their assets, you know, in this global market? Right. What is the, what is the way with which they should be kind of coming at it?
Yeah, happy to share on that. So a number of these things come first. These are, these are, are questions that people need to answer for themselves. First of all is with asset protection, in most cases, in all cases, I think. As far as I’m aware, the original.
The owner of the asset needs to be willing to give up a certain level of control or ownership, or both of those assets. And that’s the way that you separate the legal liability from the individual from the assets. So, the first thing is, can you become comfortable with the concept of entrusting a third-party professional trust company or an administrator and a board of a foundation, which you can settle, you can set up with a certain amount. Yeah, with a certain amount of control over the assets that you have presumably collected throughout your life. Built throughout your life. That’s a, that’s the first concept. So if you’re okay with it, if you want to maintain absolute control, then chances are the amount of asset protection you can do is fairly limited. So with greater control or ownership, the greater chance that someone, through litigation or other means, can take those assets away.
So let’s say first of all that you could get comfortable with that concept. The second concept is then let’s say there are two major ways of thinking about it. So you have two different types of structures depending on whether you’re in a civil law jurisdiction or a common law jurisdiction. And those two most common structures are either trusts or foundations. And most of most jurisdictions that pride themselves on asset protection will have some variation or have both of those. Whether you’re in certain European countries, or you’re in the United States, or you’re in Canada, having some of those structures may or may not be viewed and viewed differently by the laws of that country.
So first of all, you need to be understanding where, what assets you’re trying to protect, who you’re trying to protect them from, where you’re physically going to be, and what nationality are you? And these are things that professional advisors can help guide you, guide you. On the second, or I’ll say a third most really fundamental concept that people need to understand about asset protection is there’s typically with a trust there’s a, we call it a statute of limitations or a period of time, which is called a time limit for fraudulent conveyance.
What that essentially means is what’s the period of time in which the country that you set up your trust in would deem that, if you lost in court, that your intention for setting up the asset protection vehicle was to avoid losing it because of a potential lawsuit that you knew was coming. Okay, so the the concept of setting up an asset protection structure in order to defraud someone else, each country has a certain amount of limitations on. My preferred statute of limitations for fraudulent conveyance is two years in my mind, a jurisdiction that has a two-year limitation before they redeem something potentially fraudulent. With the idea that you’re gonna defraud someone else because you set up or intentionally set up the structure to defraud someone else, two years, in my mind, is fairly safe.
That’s, ‘s a major concept. The other, the other major concept that I, that people, for example, in the United States, most, most states, if not all, have trust laws. So many, many people set up trusts, and there are various types of them with the idea that, well, you know, if I have a trust, then, you know, my assets are protected. People need to understand that if the trust is in the same jurisdiction as the assets are in, and the courts of those jurisdictions most likely can get access to those assets, you know, they can, they can force you to do things with those assets.
So even if you’re a, you have assets in California and you have a California trust, and you think that you’re protected because you have a trustee, etc. Etc. There are usually certain ways in which the courts could force you to give up those assets, even if it’s in the trust. So it’s important that you be willing to separate as much as possible the assets from where you could potentially be sued. And also understanding which type of assets can be protected, which ones can’t, and then certainly understanding the implications long term for family members or other beneficiaries who would need to benefit from the assets that are in that trust ,address their foundation. And it’s a very, very big topic.
But if you can answer some of those basic questions and get your, your mind around certain concepts that are fundamental to asset protection, then it becomes more of, you know, where what level of control am I willing, where am I going to set this up, what level of control am I willing to live with? And ultimately, who do I want to benefit from, you know, from me setting this up? And so you kind of have to have a fairly long view as to what you want to do with your asset protection to answer some of those questions. But some of them are very personal.
So if you start with the personal questions first, that’s what I would say.
Yeah, no, good insights there. I think that’s a good way to really transition your mindset before you even really start making this type of shift. What’s one piece of advice you could give to investors who want to future-proof their wealth and opportunities?
Future proof? The wealth and the opportunities. I would say I’ll just tell you what I’ve done, and maybe that will shed some light. I don’t have a universal, a universal trust that any one particular country, any one particular nationality, any type of investment product, any particular real estate market is safe enough. Or, or that is, I don’t think any of them are future proof. So I have multiple residencies on the path to a portfolio of citizenships, have bank accounts in many jurisdictions and will separate assets into many different buckets across many different jurisdictions in case any one system, any one country, any one political group betrays the trust that I originally put in that, in that country. And I think in that way, no matter what, you’re not over, you’re not overextending yourself or over committing yourself to any one particular country’s political system or financial system. And I think, as far as I’ve gathered so far, that’s the best way to future-proof yourself.
I don’t think any one country’s political or financial system is future-proof… So I have multiple residencies, bank accounts in many jurisdictions, and will separate assets into many different buckets.
Yeah. Love it. Well, this has been a fascinating discussion, Matt. You know, I think this is definitely like you say, I mean, really, the shift really from COVID, I think, was such a massive transition. Right. And now, you know, with, you know, global, I mean, the truly global economy and just shifting geopolitical and environment and everything, this is definitely something investors should be considering for sure. So if people want to, you know, connect with you, learn more about outbound investments, or follow you. What is the best place?
Yeah, so I’m, I’m most active on on LinkedIn and happy to share those details. And of course I have a publicly facing calendar link, and I do have limited spots. If someone wants to grab 15 minutes with me and have a quick chat about their situation before we talk about any formal engagements or anything like that, I’d be happy to do that for your listeners on a. Yeah, on, on a complimentary basis.
Awesome. We will be sure to post that into the show notes, guys. So, Matt, thanks again for your time. You know, really enjoyed that discussion. And I think it’s something that, you know, we should all be considering as investors, as citizens, like all these different dynamics. Right. You know, there’s so many kinds ofthings going on. Right. I appreciate those insights in your time today. Thanks again.
Thanks so much, Dave. Appreciate you having me.
All right, guys, until next week, thanks again. Thanks for listening to this episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets. If you’d like to get a free copy of the book, go to holistic wealthstrategy.com that’s holisticwealthstrategy.com if you’d like to.
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