Howard Bilton
Howard Bilton
Howard Bilton (born 3 August 1962) is a British barrister turned businessman and philanthropist.
Originally from Yorkshire but now based primarily in Hong Kong, Bilton is founder, chairman and former chief executive officer of The Sovereign Group, which specialises in corporate, trust and pensions services.
It now has assets under management in excess of USD10 billion.
He is also an Adjunct Professor at Texas A&M University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas, and a regular contributor to newspapers and specialist journals on tax and legal matters.
A noted collector of contemporary art, Bilton founded Sovereign Art Foundation in 2003 to recognise the growing wealth of contemporary art talent in Asia though The Sovereign Asian Art Prize and to fund art therapy programmes for underprivileged children across the Asian region.
A long admirer of wines from Portugal’s Alentejo region, Bilton joined forces with leading winemaker David Baverstock in 2002 to create Howard’s Folly Wines.
Early life and education
Born near Hull in Yorkshire, Bilton attended Red House Preparatory School in York before gaining a scholarship to St Peter’s School in York, the oldest school in the UK and founded in 627.
Bilton graduated from the University of Keele with a joint honours degree in Latin and Law in 1984, before qualifying as a barrister at the Inns of Court School of Law in 1985.
He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1985.
Career
In 1986, Bilton was hired as Legal Consultant to International Company Services Ltd (ICS), an Isle of Man-based Trust and Company Service Provider (TCSP), where he provided tax advice to clients and also acted as in-house legal counsel.
In 1987, he moved to Gibraltar to open and manage a new office for ICS.
He was called to the Bar of Gibraltar in 1987 and the following year co-established a legal practice specialising in Companies Law and Commercial Law, which still trades as Hodgson Bilton & Co. in Gibraltar.
Bilton opened further offices for ICS in Hong Kong in 1989 and in Portugal in 1990.
That year he was appointed as Chairman of the ICS group of companies.
In 1998, Bilton founded The Sovereign Group, headquartered in Gibraltar, and became its Chairman and Chief Executive.
It has since grown into one of the largest independent TCSPs in the world with a global office network and over 450 employees.
He stepped down as Chief Executive in 2018 but remains Chairman.
Bilton is a member of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, the International Tax Planning Association (IPTA), the International Bar Association (IBA) and the Hong Kong Trustees’ Association.
Sovereign Group
The Sovereign Group, headquartered in Gibraltar, is one of the largest independent TCSPs in the world.
It currently manages over 20,000 structures for a wide variety of clients – companies, entrepreneurs, private investors or high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and their families – and has assets under administration in excess of US$10 billion.
The Sovereign Group holds over 30 professional licences worldwide and is structured around four principal business lines:
• Sovereign Corporate Services – offers company formation and management across all major jurisdictions, together with the necessary support to assist companies of all sizes to establish and sustain operations successfully.
• Sovereign Private Client Services – provides trustee services and succession planning to internationally mobile families and entrepreneurs.
• Sovereign Retirement Planning – devises and administers individual and corporate international pension schemes that offer choice, transparency and portability across multiple jurisdictions.
• Sovereign Insurance Services – offers bespoke corporate and personal insurance services for our clients, wherever they are domiciled.
• Sovereign Wealth provides wealth management services
• Sovereign Marine registers and manages yachts and larger vessels.
Sovereign Art Foundation
SAF has raised USD7 million to date to fund projects using art as education, rehabilitation and therapy for disadvantaged children throughout the world.
The Sovereign Group and its event co-sponsors cover all the administrative costs of the prizes, such that 100% of the funds raised can go to charitable projects.
SAF’s ‘Make It Better’ (MIB) programme delivers weekly expressive arts workshops at 27 schools and community centres across Hong Kong.
These workshops form part of SAF’s wider ‘Jockey Club Expressive Arts Programme for Children’, which aims to train teachers in Hong Kong to integrate principles of expressive arts into their classes, to better support and communicate with children, especially those with special educational needs.
Funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust, this pioneering programme is led by the MIB team with the support of research staff from the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
SAF also runs charitable programmes outside Hong Kong—since the early 2000s it has worked with the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation in Vietnam and Nepal, M’Lop Tapang and HAGAR International in Cambodia, and the Child Welfare Scheme in Nepal.
SAF also work with the Royal Charity Organization in Bahrain and just this year partnered with the non-profit START, providing refugees, orphans and children with special needs across the Middle East and India with art therapy-based programmes.
SAF further organises a series of Students’ Prizes around the world to celebrate the importance of art in the education system and recognise the quality of art that can be produced by students.
The prizes also aim to raise funds in aid of local children’s charities, as well as for SAF and its many projects.
SAF currently has Student Prizes operating in Bahrain, Guernsey, Hong Kong, the Isle of Man, Malta, Mauritius, Portugal (Algarve) and Singapore.
Howard’s Folly Wines
In 2002, Bilton joined forces with leading winemaker David Baverstock to create Portuguese wines that reflect the best that the country has to offer.
Located to the east of Lisbon and covering a full third of Portugal’s continental territory, the Alentejo has emerged over the last 20 years as the leader of Portugal’s renaissance as a premium wine producing country.
Baverstock, an Australian by nationality but long time Portuguese resident, is credited with revolutionising the Portuguese wine industry by introducing new world techniques to old world material.
Among a host of awards, he won the Portuguese Red Wine Trophy at both the 1999 and 2002 International Wine Challenge, as well as Winemaker of the year (Portugal) 1999, the first non-Portuguese winemaker to do so.
Perhaps his greatest achievement was to be honoured as a Comendador da Ordem do Mérito Empresarial (Commander of the Order of Entrepreneurial Merit) by the President of Portugal in 2015,
Howard’s Folly wine labels change with each new vintage and feature works of art either commissioned from leading artists or selected from the artworks submitted to the annual Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
Howard Bilton Art Collection
Howard Bilton is an art collector with a special interest in emerging art markets.
His expansive personal art collection encompasses over 350 artworks – principally paintings, photographs and sculptures – that reflects his personal inclinations and enthusiasms, as well as drawing on the riches uncovered by the Sovereign art prize catalogues.
Artists currently featuring in the Howard Bilton Collection are as follows:
Caroline Achaintre, Craigie Aitchison, Olanyi Rasheed Akindiya, Rasim Aksan, Emily Allchurch, Samuel Allerton, Anthony Gormley, Veronique Aonzo, Volkan Aslan, Min Wae Aung, Nasser Azam, Seon Ghi Sunghi Bahk, Rana Begum, Deborah Bell, Xu Bing, Simon Birch, Stephen Bird, Charles Blackman, Peter Blake, Li Bo, David Boyd, Paulo Brighenti, Javier Arce Bueno, Jane Burton, Mbongeni Buthelezi, Faig Ahmed, Jeongsook Ahn, Penny Byrne, Paul Cadden, Ernesto Caivano, Rob & Nick Carter, Lynn Chadwick, Luis Chan, Shin Changyong, Ryan Cheng, Sheba Chhachhi, Chow Chun-Fai, Henrietta Coleman, Chitral Collective, John Currin, Jane Dawson, Debo, Robert Dickerson, Stephen Dupont, Melissa Egan, Damian Elwes, Angele Etoundi Essamba, Zhao Fang, Susan Ford, Richard Forster, Pierre Fouche, Sir Terry Frost, Colette Fu, Yang Fudong, Jordi Fulla, Gilbert & George, Joel Goodman, Kevin Francis Gray, Deborah Han, Ma Han, Keith Haring, Marie Harnett, Sai Hashizume, Emma Haworth, Luc De La Haye, Martin C Herbst, Hilda Hiary, John Hilliard, Tang Kwok Hin, Damian Hirst, Ngo Bo Hoang, Susan-Jane Hocking, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, Candida Hofer, Li Hongbo, James Hopkins, Zil Hoque, Harriet Horton, Kevin Hough, Neale Howells, Zhou Jin Hua, Patrick Hughes, Dick Jewel, Seok Cheol Ji, Sam Jinks, Zhu Jinshi, Alexander Kaletski, Hyungkoo Kang, Halim Al Karim, Chen Ke, Wang Keping, Han Ki-Joo, Anselm Kiefer, In Sook Kim, Frog King, Marek Kvetán, Yi Hwan Kwon, Urich Wai-Yuen Lau, Debbie Lawson, Sam Leach, Danny Chin-Fai Lee, Yunhee Lee, Chris Levine, Lucille Lewin, Yang Yong Liang, Roy Lichenstein, Zheng Lu, Gonçalo Mabunda, Tim Macguire, David Mach, Livio De Marchi, Giles Massot, Sandy Mclea, Robert Mcnally, Shui Mei, Garry Fabian Miller, Jo Milne, Ju Ming, Wladyslaw Mirecki, Kimiyo Mishima, Mohammed Harib, Aman Mojadidi, Kyle Morland, Lucinda Mudge, Vic Muniz, Youssef Nabil, Moataz Nasr, Kohei Nawa, Shirin Neshat, Nic Bladen, Sohei Nishino, Nila Oblak & Primoz Novak, Shinji Ogawa, December Pang, Eduardo Paolozzi, Cornelia Parker, Eric Parnes, Martha Parsey, Jody Paulsen, Christian Pendelio, Daniel Pitin, Thierry Poncelet, Pala Pothulitiye, Sebastian Purdon, N. Pushpamala, Zang Qiang, Sara Rabhar, Rashid Rana, Navin Rawanchaikul, Robert Zhao Renhui, Gordon Richards, Nicola Roos, Michael Roschlau, Roudha Al Shamsi, Julie Rrap, Gideon Rubin, Thomas Ruff, Athi-Patra Ruga, Woo Sagong, Moises Saman, Charles Sandison, Lee Sanghyun, Dikdik Sayahdikumullah, Viktor Schroeder, Alexander Seaton, Jason Seife, Lv Shanchuan, Conrad Shawcross, Wilson Sheih, Rupert Shrive, Shahzia Sikander, Suchao Sisganes, Ho Siukee, Tracey Snelling, Xavier Somers, Peter Sorrell, Annie Sprinkle, Peter Steinhauer, Frank Stella, Tim Storrier, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Pétur Thomsen, Jonathan Thomson, Guy Pierre Du Toit, Gavin Turk, Bae Bien U, Vasarely Viktor, Gina Waldman-Balkind, Andy Warhol, Ai Wei Wei, Jeff Widener, Barbara Wildenboer, Adrian Wong, Fiona Wong, Miao Xiaochun, Yin Xin, Zhang Ye Xing, Maoyuan Yang, Jonathan Yeo, Madeline Ong Yu Ying and Lu Zhengyuan
Personal life
Bilton has two sons from his earlier marriage and one daughter with his partner, Susie Rippingall, a Non-Executive Director of Aberdeen New Dawn Investment Trust PLC, Sovereign Wealth, NTAsian Discovery Fund and NTAsian Emerging Leaders Fund.