By Simon Gray – The financial crisis has slowed but not stalled efforts to build up a regional fund industry that contains substance on the ground in the Middle East rather than focused on outside financial services jurisdictions such as London, Luxembourg and Ireland. In Dubai, where efforts to build a broad-based financial sector have been underway for nearly a decade, the number of locally-domiciled funds is growing and a number of prominent global service providers are active in the sector. For Dubai, one of the twin business capitals of the United Arab Emirates along with Abu Dhabi, establishing an

Interview with Kevin Birkett (pictured), DIFC Authority – Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is an onshore financial hub in the UAE, and is, location-wise, the perfect gateway for fund managers trading markets both West and East. Although only eight years old, DIFC has come a long way in a short space of time. Although it is still early days in terms of DIFC competing with more established onshore domiciles like Ireland and Luxembourg, Kevin Birkett, managing director-business development, DIFC Authority, is quick to stress that DIFC is more than just a funds centre, noting that 18 of the top 25 global

Interview with Peter Hughes, group managing director, Apex Fund Services – Providing a full solution set that spans middle and back office fund administration, as well as specialised reporting and fund formation: that’s the primary focus at Apex Fund Services, one of the world’s largest independent fund administration companies with more than USD23billion in AuA. With an on-the-ground presence in the Middle East for nearly six years, the firm has seen first-hand the evolution of local fund managers embracing independent administrators. “When people leave banks or other institutions to set up their own funds, we want them to come to

By Simon Gray – The Middle East is bouncing back from the financial and political turbulence of the past few years and with it the region’s alternative fund industry is again gaining traction. With Dubai shrugging off its debt problems to regain traction as a financial and business centre, Bahrain emerging from the political confrontations that disrupted the country in 2011 and Qatar continuing its breakneck emergence as a regional business hub, there’s a new sense of dynamism throughout the Gulf region. Middle East investors have been looking to alternatives for years as part of their investment portfolios. However, this

Northern European banking group SEB has seen a 20 per cent increase in mandates on its prime brokerage platform over the last 12 months. The platform has attracted 70 new hedge fund mandates in 2012, bringing the total number to more than 400. SEB’s fully segregated custody based model, protecting client assets without re-hypothecation, has proved particularly popular with international clients, which have grown their business with SEB by 30 per cent this year.   SEB also re-launched its FX Prime Brokerage service in 2012, resulting in client trade flow with SEB as prime broker growing around 300 per cent

LIG Assets has entered into an alliance with Texas Real Estate Hedge Fund to invest, acquire, manage and finance commercial real estate properties. Geographically these assets will be well located properties in the Southwest, West and Midwest sectors of the US. Texas Real Estate Hedge Fund will focus on commercial real estate opportunities with valuations ranging from USD5m to USD100m. The composition of these assets will cover multifamily, retail, destination hotel and office properties. LIG Asset’s and Texas Real Estate Hedge Fund’s expertise, in association with a team from MMR Realty Advisors and Inter Continental Real Partners will selectively analyse