Meet the Offshore Investor Next Door

The release of the Panama Papers has fed two stereotypes about offshore investing: that it is the exclusive preserve of the rich and that its main purpose is to avoid taxes. Like most stereotypes, it's accurate only in part.

In today's fraught political climate, it's easy to miss the fact that investment funds listed outside the U.K. (and U.S.) help plenty of middle class people too. That isn't the image that immediately springs to mind these days or which has motivated calls for a regulatory crackdown on offshore investments. But ordinary employees of Britain's largest companies, trade unions and councils also participate in offshore investing, through their pension plans.