The rush of financial firms setting up in Abu Dhabi to tap the emirate’s wealth funds and Middle East markets will continue at pace, the official in charge of expanding its financial hub has predicted.
Abu Dhabi, which holds 90 percent of the UAE’s oil reserves, has accelerated efforts to diversify its economy, leaning on its vast sovereign funds that together manage almost $2 trillion of capital.
Abu Dhabi Global Markets still lags Dubai, but the number of firms registered in the centre rose by 32% last year, and the amount of assets managed by firms there grew 245 percent, as the likes of BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, AXA PGIM and hedge fund Marshall Wace all set up or registered funds there.
Earlier on Tuesday, Harrison Street, a US firm focused on alternative real estate assets with about $56 billion in assets under management, said it was opening an office in Abu Dhabi.
The centre reported last week that new operating licences increased 67% in the first quarter of this year taking the total number of firms there past 2,380.
“We still have very strong growth,” ADGM’s chief market development officer, Arvind Ramamurthy said, noting that the pipeline of new firms looked strong for the rest of the year, but refrained from giving a forecast for assets growth.
“Will it be 245% again this year? I wish. Let’s see,” he said in an interview late on Monday.
Firms from Japan, India and China are also setting up in growing numbers – asset managers and financial institutions but also crypto and artificial intelligence firms, Ramamurthy said providing any details.
With cryptocurrency regulations in place since 2018, Abu Dhabi has become a major centre for such investment, with sector heavyweights such as Circle and Coinbase represented there, while Abu Dhabi-backed investment group MGX has recently invested $2 billion worth of crypto tokens – issued by US President Donald Trump’s World Liberty Financial venture – in the world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance.
