Verition Fund Management is opening an office in Dubai, joining industry heavyweights Millennium Management and ExodusPoint Capital Management who’ve recently expanded to the emirate.
(Bloomberg) — Verition Fund Management is opening an office in Dubai, joining industry heavyweights Millennium Management and ExodusPoint Capital Management who’ve recently expanded to the emirate.
The Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm has hired former Morgan Stanley executive Saad Mahmood to lead its outpost in Dubai’s financial district. Verition is expected to start with 15 people and plans to grow from there, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Dubai has emerged as a favored destination for hedge fund traders who’re drawn by its ease of doing business, tax-free status and allure as a global travel hub. The emirate’s financial center is in talks with more than 50 hedge funds about setting up operations in the city, an executive said this year.
Read More: Dubai Is New Hedge Fund Hub as Millennium, ExodusPoint Move In
“The opportunity to live and work in Dubai is especially appealing to our current and prospective portfolio managers,” Verition co-founder Josh Goldstein said. “The region offers a friendly time zone for traders with a global investment mandate, lower taxes, and excellent infrastructure.”
Verition, like its multi-strategy peers, relies on teams of traders to invest across asset classes. It differentiates itself by trading niche strategies with lower capacities to manage money.
The firm has grown assets to more than $7 billion from $1 billion over the past four years, and expanded staff threefold to about 400 in that period. Its multi-strategy fund has posted annualized returns of 12.5% since its launch in 2008 through May this year, according to an investor letter seen by Bloomberg.
The fund currently has offices in Greenwich, New York, London, Singapore and Hong Kong.
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