Resident Group Finance Office · Panama
Your Panama headquarters — actually run, not just registered.
A SEM headquarters and a multinational holding rest on real substance: qualified finance people on the ground, strategic decisions taken in Panama, group reporting produced locally. ARXA is the resident group finance office that makes that real — and keeps your structure genuinely managed as SEM obligations and Law 526 (from fiscal year 2027) take hold. Built by former Big Four and restructuring-PE finance. EN · ES · FR.
Why substance, why now
A tax position you can’t stand behind is a liability, not an asset.
Panama’s territorial system and the SEM regime’s 5% rate are real advantages — but they hold only when the structure is genuinely operated here. The SEM licence already requires adequate qualified, full-time staff and adequate operating expenditure in Panama. From fiscal year 2027, Law 526 adds economic-substance tests for multinational groups. And with Panama on the EU list, member states apply defensive measures and banks increasingly withdraw from structures with no real presence. The headquarters that will stand are the ones actually run from Panama — with a finance function to match.
The Gap
A licence is not a finance function. A registered agent is not substance.
01 Law firms file the licence and the annual compliance.
02 Accountants keep the books.
03 A resident agent signs.
04 But no one runs the group’s finance — the qualified people, the decisions, the consolidation that substance actually consists of.
ARXA becomes that function.
Substance, made real
Substance is not a checkbox. It is a group that is genuinely run.
Qualified finance people, resident in Panama
Real capacity on the ground, not a nameplate.
Decisions taken — and minuted — in Panama
Governance with a documented trail.
Group consolidation produced locally
The numbers made here, not imported.
Board-ready reporting & controls
A managed group, evidenced.
Operating presence proportionate to activity
Real, adequate, defensible.
One accountable finance owner
A function, not a filing.
Substance follows from genuine management. ARXA provides the real, resident finance function and its documentation; how it maps to your group’s overall tax position is determined with your tax and legal counsel. ARXA does not provide home-country tax advice or guarantee any tax treatment.
Start here
The Panama Substance & Group Finance Readiness Review.
A fixed-scope engagement, two to three weeks. We assess your finance function against the SEM criteria and the Law 526 tests, review the state of your consolidation and treasury, form a view on headcount and operating-expense adequacy, and deliver a board-ready gap analysis with a 90-day roadmap. It is the clearest first step — and it tells you exactly where you stand.
Board pack
Group — monthly summary
ARXA
Confidential
- Consolidated revenue
- $48.0M +6%
- EBITDA
- $10.1M +4%
- Operating cash flow
- $7.4M +9%
- Net debt
- $24.2M −3%
Agenda
- 01 Group performance
- 02 Treasury & covenants
- 03 Financing pipeline
- 04 Risks & controls
Services
A recurring resident finance office, and the high-value mandates a group needs at the moments that matter.
Group KPI dashboard
Q2 · consolidated
Group revenue · LTM
$48.0M
EBITDA margin
21%
Net leverage
2.4×
Cash conversion
92%
Revenue by entity
The Office
- Group reporting & consolidated statements
- FP&A, budget & forecast
- Cash-flow & treasury
- Banking relationships
- KPI dashboards
- Board packages
- Weekly / monthly CFO cadence
- Financial strategy
Recurring and resident — produced from Panama.
Mandates
- Substance & finance readiness
- Valuation
- Financial due diligence
- Debt raising & bank financing
- M&A support
- Post-merger integration
- Financial modelling
- Investor & lender reporting
Scoped and priced per engagement.
Reporting fluency
Fluent in the standards your group reports under.
Cross-border groups rarely live under a single standard. ARXA reports, reconciles and consolidates across all four — from Panama.
Consolidation — revenue ($M)
Group view
Who we serve
Built for headquarters that must be genuinely run.
SEM & EMMA licensees
Multinational headquarters that must be genuinely staffed and run in Panama.
Groups facing Law 526
Multinational groups preparing for the FY2027 substance tests.
Panama-HQ operating groups
Real Latin-American operations run from a Panama headquarters.
PE funds & family offices
Portfolio-level finance and oversight for Panama holdings.
The Principal
On the ground, at the level the structure requires.
ARXA is led by a finance executive trained inside a Big Four audit practice and one of Europe’s largest restructuring funds, with experience across financial reporting, FP&A, M&A, due diligence, valuation and debt financing, and group consolidation as a specialty. Reporting fluency across US GAAP, IFRS, UK GAAP and French GAAP. Resident in Panama. Working languages: English, Spanish, French.
Resident in Panama · English · Spanish · French
Standards & scope
Discretion by default. Institutional documentation. Clear independence.
ARXA provides a genuine resident finance function; it does not provide home-country tax advice and guarantees no tax treatment. We work alongside your tax and legal counsel.
Questions
Answered plainly, and truthfully.
What is Law 526, and when does it apply?
Law 526 is Panama’s 2026 economic-substance law for multinational groups’ foreign-source passive income. Its substance tests apply from fiscal year 2027. It sits alongside the existing SEM staffing and operating-expenditure requirements as part of the obligations a genuinely operated headquarters already meets.
Does an outsourced finance office count as substance?
It provides genuine qualified, resident finance capacity, and decisions taken and documented in Panama — which are core elements of substance. Whether your group’s overall position is sufficient depends on its full facts and is determined with your tax and legal counsel. ARXA provides the finance reality and its documentation, not a tax opinion.
Do you replace our law firm or our accountants?
No. Your law firm files the licence and the annual compliance; your accountants keep the books. ARXA runs the group finance function above them — the consolidation, the reporting, the decisions and the controls — and works alongside both.
Isn’t a resident agent or local director enough?
A nominee is not qualified personnel, and a signature does not mean decisions are genuinely taken in Panama — which is exactly what the substance tests look at. ARXA provides real finance capacity and a documented decision trail, in-country.
Do you guarantee we keep the SEM 5% rate?
No. ARXA makes the operating and finance reality real and documented; tax treatment is your counsel’s domain. We give your advisors a genuinely managed group to work with, and the evidence that it is one.
Can you work in Spanish?
Yes. Engagements run in English, Spanish or French — including direct dialogue with each subsidiary’s controller in their own language.
Contact
Request a confidential readiness call.
Tell us about your structure. We reply personally, in confidence.