We’ve written before about the influx of companies establishing offices in the Middle East, and how that region presents one of the few growth opportunities around the world in the current economic environment. Now, Reuters reports that one of Russia’s top performing hedge funds, Pharos Financial Group, has opened an office in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) to attract Gulf investors to its funds.
With offices in Moscow and now Dubai, some suggest that the Kremlin harbors ambitions of turning Moscow into a regional financial capital, competing against Dubai for emerging market capital.
The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already an established hub for global finance. It bridges the time gap between the financial centers of Hong Kong and London. Over 700 firms have registered at the DIFC, which offers its member institutions many incentives such as 100 per cent foreign ownership, zero tax on income and profits and no restrictions on foreign exchange, according to a Pharos-issued press release.
Given the current state of the economy and financial markets, many hedge fund professionals are pleased to still be in the business and generally satisfied with their overall compensation. That’s one of the findings revealed by our recently completed 2008 Hedge Fund Jobs Digest Compensation Survey.
We received hedge fund compensation data directly from hundreds of hedge fund Portfolio Managers and employees from both large and small firms, including Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays Global Investors, Citigroup, Fountain Advisors LLC, HSBC, Kellogg Capital Group, Lansdowne Partners and many others.
The results show that these players in hedge fund jobs knew trouble was brewing on the horizon not long ago. And that 42% of them are happy with their current level of compensation – up from 25% last year. Despite no significant increase in compensation, there was a big increase in job satisfaction – an indication that, before Wall Street’s meltdown, hedge fund employees knew the market had shifted.
You can read the executive summary of the Compensation Survey at JobSearchDigest.com
It’s no surprise that hedge fund executives are expecting increased regulation under a Democratic-controlled Congress and the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama. A new survey by the CPA Firm Rothstein Kass and distributed by PR Newswire reports that 98% of partners in hedge funds expect tighter restrictions and that there will be an associated rise in compliance costs that will make hedge funds more expensive to operate, as a result.
The main areas where increased regulation is expected to take place, according to survey respondents, include:
– Asset Valuations 84%
– Counterparty Risk 84%
– Capital Raising 80.8%
– Transparency 77.3%
However, on the positive side, those surveyed felt that these changes may not lead to more fund closures or fewer start-ups being funded.
