144. UAE – staying the course

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2:57Hello and welcome back to The Long Short, AIMA's podcast looking at the people, ideas and development shaping the alternative investment industry. I'm your host, Tom Keogh, and as ever, I'm joined by my co-host, Drew Nicol. Great to be back. So today we're heading back to the UAE. It has been an extraordinary year to date for the region. The conflict that began in February created a very different backdrop for businesses, financial markets, and of course, the people who live and work there. And while much has returned to normal, geopolitical uncertainty still remains part of the wider picture.

3:34Throughout that period, we have seen and continue to see activity across the financial sector in the UAE with firms establishing and expanding their presence across both Dubai and Abu Dhabi. and there's a human story here too behind the announcements of new office launches and the investment and growth there are the people who live and work in the uae who have had a remarkable year and so we thought now is a good time to catch up with someone who knows the uae financial market very well indeed yeah regular listeners will of course recall chris hughes editor-in-chief for abu dhabi finance week who joined us last year and he's joining us again today from Abu Dhabi.

4:18Chris, great to have you back on the long short. Great to be back and welcome back to the capital of capital here in Abu Dhabi. And as I mentioned, it has been an extraordinary period. So how would you describe the mood today, Chris? The reality of the mood today and the mood that I expected or projected six months ago are two very different moods. Going back six months ago when it's a well-told story that we had significant issues that came very close to all of our lives on a very personal level over here in the UAE. Going back six months ago, thinking of where we would have been at the end of the year, I think all of us were fairly despondent about to rethink.

5:14However, the reality of life in October 2026 is very different. I don't have a lot of experience in being in situations like this, but I think it's kind of unusual that life is pretty much back to normal. You know, the malls are full, the roads are full, the annoying traffic's back. You know, the airports are very busy. People come in and go on. The lobbies of the hotels continue to be filled with people doing deals and all of the different things. And, you know, obviously we have our own barometer of the international engagement of people in Abu Dhabi through Abu Dhabi Finance Week, which in itself is doing really well this year.

6:08So despite the fact that it was a highly unusual circumstance at the start of the year, life's great. There are wider regional issues, but it's important to remember that the region is not just one place. The region is lots of different places, lots of different countries, and lots of different characteristics. Just as Europe has France and Germany and the United Kingdom, the Middle East has its own countries who are all different. And, you know, my world is in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and that's where I spend all my time. And, you know, it's all good here. Good to hear it.

6:54You obviously spend all your time speaking to the people and the business leaders in Abu Dhabi and the wider region. How do you feel where we are today that they responded to the substantial events of the year? Well, you know, it's people's own individual responses are often personal to them, but I get to see the corporate picture and I get to see that, you know, fairly clearly and the mathematical statistics of it all show that Abu Dhabi's emergence as an international financial centre continues to grow up and to the right. It continues to grow. You know, our assets under management in the Abu Dhabi global market, which is our financial centre, have grown by 54 % year on year as of the first half of this year.

7:52You know, some of the biggest financial institutions in the world have chosen to set up an Abu Abu Dhabi this year. You know, firms like Capital Group, Man Group, the great hedge fund, who, you know, Barings, Bain Capital, Hill House, the biggest asset manager in China, Muzinich from New York, Madison, Rokos, Rokos Investment Management, Vista Equity Partners, Robert Smith's shop, Cantor Fitzgerald, Blue Oil, have all set up their operations in Abu Dhabi in 2026. That's just a fact. We're up to just under 4 ,000 operational entities in the financial centre now, which is up 34 % from 2025. You know, we've just under 50 ,000 people working day to day in our financial centre, which again is significantly up.

8:53So the headline is we've grown this year. Not only have we not receded because of everything that's happened, the facts are that the Abu Dhabi global market, Abu Dhabi as a financial center, has actually gotten bigger. That is just a mathematical fact. And which means that, you know, a lot of people have decided, You know, Abu Dhabi's trajectory is worth getting involved with, even though there are, you know, regional issues. And they're continuing to come in and back us. You know, I think the important thing to remember is how quickly Abu Dhabi has grown as a financial centre. It's, if you were to go back to about four years ago and you were to look at the main indices in the world that rank financial centres, she probably would have found Abu Dhabi in and around number 30, 35.

9:53Whereas today, just in four years, four and a half years, we're just under the top 10. Like all the major indices are all, you know, we're ranking Abu Dhabi at number 12, number 13. And that's all just happened in four years. So I don't think any financial center has ever grown so fast. And I think all great investors take a long-term view on things. They don't just think in quarters and the year that they're in. They think in decades. And I think Abu Dhabi's positioning as an intelligent, well-designed, extremely well-capitalized financial center with intelligent regulations and intelligent legal structures underpinning all that, what's geographically being in the center of many of the biggest growth markets and planet Earth in the next 50 years.

10:48You know, Africa is just below us. The ASEAN regions are just to the east of us. India, the CIS nations, the STANDs as they're called. You know, these places are all growing like incredibly quickly. And, you know, just as the center of gravity for global financial economy sat somewhere between New York and London over the past hundred years, you're probably going to find, you know, a more multipolar world in the next 50, 100 years. And, you know, the region, and, you know, in our case Abu Dhabi, is very well positioned to be truly global financial centre that has meaningful effect in the global markets and meaningful locations for, you know, globalised financial and other trade.

11:35So I think people continue to know that. And, you know, if you look around Abu Dhabi, just the sheer amount of cranes in the sky, right? The sheer amount of shovels in the ground, right? These are not projects that may or may not happen. These are things that are going to be ready in six months and one year and 18 months and two years. And honestly, it's a bit disorientating because everywhere you look, there's a new kind of half-built skyscraper just appearing in front of you. You drive up the road and then there's a housing estate that wasn't there three months ago, now just sort of half-built.

12:12And it's kind of interesting to observe. I would imagine there are, it's probably something we should work out, but instinctively I would imagine that we probably have the most real estate development going on in Abu Dhabi than anywhere else in the world today. And all plans are good to go. So, you know, that's the, ultimately it's a good news story. I know there's many centers out there but the facts all you can deal with is the facts and the facts are that Abu Dhabi has grown as a financial centre in 2026 That's very helpful context Chris and from our perspective at EMA we have an active manager group of our members who are out in the region and they are endorsing the region as well what you what you are telling us we're hearing from them um one of the things that i can add to what you said is is that we're hearing from our member firms some of the names who you've mentioned and there is really a sense of a long-term commitment um to building a business in the region and you've talked about the remarkable growth in the region what keeps like question i have i asked you this last year and obviously we've got we will come to it in a few moments about finance week what keeps drawing the very best across the world to the region well it's a really good question and i think you know why do companies exist yes they exist to make profit but ultimately they exist because a bunch of people have gotten together and decided to form partnership with each other and go off and trade some service or product art to the world.

14:04So that's why companies exist. But, you know, for all of the AI development, for all of these things, ultimately it's about people. Okay. And as a person, right, let's just take me, I live here, my wife lives here, my children live here. We've lived here for seven years. And, you know, I love living here. I think it's amazing. Like at the weekend, I took the kids, you know, for an hour in the car and we spent 36 hours in one of the most amazing hotels you'll ever see in your life that had kids clubs and it had, it had like fun and it had, I bumped into people that I I knew it, the pool, it had the food was amazing.

14:55The service was amazing. The vibe was just really nice. It was just a great weekend vibe. And, you know, it's just a nice place to live. That's the bottom line of, you know, I think why this place is working. It's because ultimately it's just pleasant. It's like, you know, I love London. And anytime I go to London, I love walking through the parks. I love looking at the palaces and the, you know, just this sense of like, it's been built with like the achievements and the experiences of people at night. Like you walk through the West End and you see all the buzz and the noise. You walk through Chinatown and Soho.

15:35And it's just an experience to be in London, right? Which is why a lot of people like to be in London, which is why businesses have kind of come up on the back of people's desire to live there. And the same sort of thing is happening here. um now abu dhabi is is building really quickly like disneyland is coming to abu dhabi it's it's being built at the minute um and you know disneyland is fluffy bubble mickey mouse but it's also a very serious business that deals with the most important customers in the world children and you know disneyland don't choose to set up in places for no reason you know they they're a big and important company and they choose their locations carefully and the last place Disneyland chose to build a Disneyland was 10 years ago I think it was Tokyo and nowhere since now Abu Dhabi so Abu Dhabi's developing as time goes on like the you know behind me there all the museums are all starting to open up at the minute so it's kind of just a flower that's just blooming and starting to bloom it's still pollinating at the minute um I think people are starting to wake up to the idea of Abu Dhabi a little bit more because it hasn't been that forever you know if you go back 15 years ago it was probably a different place even 10 years ago it's probably a different place um and now it's kind of people are just talking to each other through their whatsapp groups and through their their friend circles and at dinners and wherever people hang up with each other and they're whispering about this this secret amazing place called Abu Dhabi and they're choosing to go there for some people going holiday, have a look around and then decide, okay, let's just go for it.

17:17In fact, I bumped into one such fellow the weekend by the pool. He was here on holiday and actually he was here scouting out the place to bring his family here because he feels like he's going to have a better life for the kids. And, you know, people are just coming here. And that's what builds the companies. That's what builds great companies are built by great people and great people are coming here every day. Chris, you've mentioned a few times there about the speed of growth, which I think allows me to ask you a similar question to a question I asked you just over a year ago, I think, because I suspect the answer will have developed a lot in only 12 months.

17:58and that's to do with the nature of the changing relationships that some of the names that you mentioned earlier are having with Abu Dhabi. Of course, when a new financial hub opens up, there's a natural evolution of an office opening and it being relatively modest in terms of the number of people and the types of people and what have you. And then there's a maturation, more decision makers, more key figures within the firm as they establish. And that's a completely normal thing that we've seen around the world over the decades so putting that question to you in terms of where we are on that evolution from the uae's perspective are we seeing more decision makers more key figures and is there ultimately more actual business coming as opposed to that token office that you might have seen that's a year ago um you know when we were first i i've been working on the ADGM project since 2020.

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20:372020 actually, it was 2020. But the day-to-day business of like, you know, trying to attract firms in and get them to set up. I've been doing that since about 2022. uh the the fdi stuff you know and back in 2022 a win for adgm would have been you know getting a big global firm to come in and you know put two or five employees in there and you know relatively low tier regulatory licensing you know to kind of hope for the best that they would grow over the years today a win for adgm is hundreds of employees moving into an office and you know Our offices are actually mostly sold out and they're trying desperately to get towers up.

21:21We've taken over Reem Island, which means that ADGM is 10x in size. So it's a very different type of success that we're seeing now as a financial center. And the team, there's a huge team of people, hundreds of people who all work together on this idea. and I think fair play to the work that they've done because we've kind of got a ball rolling and it's now moving faster and faster and faster and it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger. What is that old saying about a snowball effect? And now you're starting to see that there's an element of virility in the Abu Dhabi global market at the minute.

22:06and it isn't just IR departments coming in to put two IR people to try and bump into the right sovereign wealth fund leaders and try and raise some capital and export it back to wherever their headquarters is. It's a very different dynamic now. It's new firms coming in and running large global payments businesses from here. You've got firms trading equities in Japan from here. You've got firms. And yes, the sovereign funds, obviously Abu Dhabi is multiple sovereign funds that could have up to$2 trillion. And AUM, very well-run organizations, and they are here as well, which gives us a fairly significant head start.

22:52But when you think of other great financial centers, Singapore and Hong Kong, these places did not have sovereign wealth funds where they became great. They eventually had sovereign wealth. So they might have had small southern muffins, but they didn't. GIC and Tomasic weren't a very big deal in Singapore when firms first started to decide that Singapore was the right place to grow in. And the idea that Abu Dhabi is following a similar path, but it has the benefit of$2 trillion of capital in the southern muffins. But they invest in the best opportunities. And yes, some of it's relationship driven.

23:32Yes, you know, but ultimately it's mathematical. And, you know, we can see firms coming in to do all sorts of different things. There's firms like, for example, the digital assets stuff. You know, that stuff is, you know, is really moving away from the traditional kind of crypto stuff and into a more institutional world. I've seen somebody said the other day that, you know, the crypto bros are now starting to put a suit on, which, you know, I find that interesting. And, you know, Abu Dhabi is, because of its regulations, because it understands that digital assets and tokenization and stable coins and things have real world application to fairly significant global issues.

24:17You know, they're building a mature and they're building a sophisticated sort of infrastructure in order to facilitate all of that stuff. You know, so a lot of these people are coming here as well to do that sort of thing. And these things are not driven by sovereign wealth capital. These things are driven by regulations. These things are driven by English common law. These things are driven by the fact that Abu Dhabi is currently putting up a project that's imminent to be finished, that'll have five gigawatts of AI compute capacity, which will make us one of the biggest suppliers of AI compute capacity in the world.

24:56Again, artificial intelligences. We are in the era of modern history where artificial intelligence is the new internet. It's the new thing that people are applying to their organizations in order to achieve some type of exponential growth. And we are well set up. Sam Altman came in here about three years ago, the Chachi PD creator. And I remember he gave this great line. He said, Abu Dhabi was doing AI long before it was clear. and i remember thinking that's interesting is that they genuinely did see this picture of what has now become artificial intelligence and all the supply chain that's needed in order to to build up this infrastructure and all of these things and you know we're we're well ahead of the and probably one you're building an interesting ecosystem around that uh chris and bringing it back into our world.

25:53And it's a popular podcast for our hedge fund manager members who listen to us regularly. And just a couple of comments around that. I talked about it earlier, but there are over 100 hedge fund firms based now in the UAE. About 85 % of them are billion dollar hedge fund firms. And you've mentioned some of them in your remarks as well. What's your sense, Chris, of why the UAE has connected so well with that particular part of the asset management industry? I think hedge funds basically track events in the global markets. I think that events have become much more global. I think there's now the need to connect a bit more with China.

26:42There's a need to connect a bit more with India. There's a need to connect a bit more with the ASEAN nations, the CIS nations, Africa, Europe. and to be kind of, and there's just something interesting in the geography of this place. I don't fully understand it, but I know there's something about that that helps to answer your question. The second thing is that, again, people want to live here. It's kind of cool to live here. You know, you've got, of course, there's 0 % income tax and all of these cool things that help when people are trying to build wealth themselves. But, you know, as I said earlier, it's about the lifestyle.

27:21And also it's because, you know, Lyon in France is one of the greatest locations in the world for cuisine. Why? Well, because one great chef attracted another great chef who attracted another great chef, and all of a sudden there's 20 great chefs. And actually they're probably all competing with each other to make the best souffle, but they all live in Lyon. And, you know, ecosystems, that's what happens with ecosystems, This is kind of one turns into two and two turns into four, four turns into eight. And then at some stage, that becomes the place where people go to do that thing. And I think we're somewhere down that road with the hedge fund community where they've started to figure out, you know, that place is where the future of hedge funds is in the world.

28:08It's not, you've got Greenwich and Connecticut and all these sorts of places that just became these ecosystems. But again, it's all driven by people. and you know we've thousands of people who work work in the hedge fund industry here in Abu Dhabi and you know they've all got their families here and they've all got great lives and careers and you know what they're trading might not necessarily be related to Abu Dhabi but they're here so I think it's just about an ecosystem has formed and that that's now attracting others and it's kind of it's the power of a whatsapp recommendation it's the power of you know some hedge fund manager who went to uni with some other firm's portfolio manager and they're just friendly on whatsapp or they went swimming together and somebody said i moved out to the uae i moved out to abidabi and it's like i must give that a shout so next thing you know like someone else has moved out brought their firm with them and that's kind of what's happening um yeah it's it works because it's true And you can't be here with us today, sadly, because you're busy working on, Drew, he's busy working on Finance Week.

29:21Chris, talk to us a little bit about what we've got in store for those of us who are lucky enough to go out there. Well, firstly, everyone's welcome to Abu Dhabi in December 10th, or sorry, 7th to 10th. It's called Abu Dhabi Finance Week. It's the flagship initiative that we do here as Abu Dhabi's economy, but it's now become this fairly global summit. It's a series of about 75 different financial themed events that a lot of people are saying are designed in a way that sort of speaks in a credible way to right across the industry. you know a good way to understand how powerful finance week is that that last year finance week had ceos presidents chairmen and founders of institutions that collectively managed 63 trillion dollars of assets all in the same place at the same time um it's kind of over 50 percent of the global gdp which makes it a very important gathering of global financial leaders the fact that it's at the end of the year means that you know people can gather reflect in the year that just happened and you know anticipate the year ahead it's an amazing platform for deal making we've got an incredible array of lps for example coming in you've got the canadian pension funds coming in you've got the australian superannualators coming up you've got endowment funds from the states you've got the singapore sovereign wealth funds you know norges the the norwegian sovereign wealth fund just confirmed this morning so you've got then obviously our own sovereign wealth funds here in Abu Dhabi, unless I forget.

31:00But, you know, it's this incredible kind of deal-making platform, and it's kind of taken off. Similarly to how Abu Dhabi has taken off as a financial center, this has taken off as an event. And the two things are not disconnected, of course. So 75 different events, about 40 ,000 people, CEOs run half the global GDP, all there. um formula one the abadabbi grand prix is the day beforehand um we've got great concerts by katie parry and the chain smokers and the script and all these people all all playing the night before it's like it's an insane weekend the weekend before finance week it's kind of a lot of people come in there on the monday morning with bags under their eyes to say the least um but you know super fun and then we get down for a whole week of serious business day one focuses on abu dhabi economy and the global economy day two focuses entirely on asset management day three focuses entirely on technology and day four focuses entirely on sustainability um and you know anyone that wants to come please join us of course ima are our partners in finance week for years now and are staging their hedge funds platform at Finance Week this year, which I'd like an incredible amount of names and high-quality names that you guys have already got, and really excited to see that come to life.

32:28As are we. Work is still underway, but Drew, I know you've got lots of questions to ask on Finance Week. Well, yes. I mean, maybe the interview now I should pivot, and I should be interviewing you, Tom, because, of course, you're central to aim as contribution to Finance Week. unclear yet whether I get the invite or not but there's still time hopefully Chris he's interviewed you can't be invited by Chris not by you I did want to expand on that a little bit though because of course listeners will know that last year we had our private credit summit as part of the week which was very timely and very successful and I think a lot of people got a lot from that event this year we are focused on hedge funds i believe it's the first time we're having a dedicated hedge fund event and of course that speaks to all the growth in the region that you laid out there before but this does seem like a particularly timely um event to have as you say at the end of the year when you put uh that event alongside some of the others that are happening in private markets and banking and all the other aspects of institutional investment what does all of that coming together tell you about the uae's financial ecosystem how it's developing you've alluded to it a little bit there but if you wouldn't mind just saying a bit more i think you know finance is a very big industry in fact i was i was on the phone the other day with the representative of the CEO of a Fortune 100 chemicals company for America.

34:13And the representative said to me, like, why would our CEO come to a finance conference? And I said, well, you know, if you think your CEO is in the chemicals business, I think your CEO is in the finance business because their job is ultimately to deliver value to shareholders. And, you know, that's profitability. And that's making sure that sales happen in the business. So ultimately, everything is financial, no matter what it is that you're dealing with. And I think as organizers of a truly credible, we hope it's truly credible, please tell us if it's not, a truly credible financial gathering that there's an endless amount of content to try and get people to think about.

34:58It's not like going to an Ed Sheeran concert where you have 40 ,000 people all hear the same 12 songs. You've got 40 ,000 people going for 40 ,000 different reasons. And, you know, we cover all sorts of things. But, you know, that's what the UAE, that's what Abu Dhabi does. It's not just about, this is the important thing. It's not just about the fact that we've sovereign wealth funds controlling$2 trillion. It's this hugely sophisticated ecosystem of great companies, of great innovators, of great development happening around firms that are really making waves out in the world. Everything from AI development right through to cybersecurity, all sorts of things.

35:50And that all forms an ecosystem. And ultimately, everything ladders up to human progress. And finance is one of the greatest catalysts of human progress that you could ever imagine. And ultimately, we try to design the program so that we're trying to get people to think about where they might want to deploy capital in a way that is conducive to development of humanity. And that sounds like a very big and lofty thing for a finance organizer to say. It's actually entirely possible. A good example, last year, Bill Gates, the founder of the Microsoft Corporation, now runs a foundation, teamed up with a few local ecosystem players last year.

36:38And, you know, they were done a fundraising drive together, which led to a$1.9 billion fundraise towards the eradication of portfolio, which most analysts who understand polio would say that that$1.9 billion is enough to make polio only the second major infectious disease to be fully eradicated. So, you know, finance can do that sort of stuff, but it can also help people build wealth and families to preserve wealth and entrepreneurs to, you know, try out great new ideas that may become the next chat gpt or may fizzle and you know um so it's it's about you know a very big very complex ecosystem that all ultimately has the same idea in mind is how do we achieve progress for for markets how do we achieve progress for ourselves how do we achieve progress for humanity.

37:40And you alluded to it, Chris, aim is playing a small part. We've got our own platform on day two of Asset Abu Dhabi on the 8th of December. You've set a very high bar for us so we can only have the very best people speak. And as you know, I've been tormenting you morning, noon and night and trying to security speakers to get them over the line and thank you so much for your support. But thank you also. And they're coming. you're right they are coming yeah but thank you also because you weren't kidding you do have some tickets to give away and we have more details of that in the show notes to to not only our event but I gather you're also giving tickets away for the week which is very very generous of you and to Amy so we've a limited number so get on them while you can but we'll have more information about that in the show notes but we're delighted to be coming back and we look forward to catching up with you Chris but from us and from the team here at the Long Short and Aima thank you for all that you do we know you had a extraordinary year and to be putting on this event at the end of the year is a huge testimonial to all of what you're doing out in the region and we're looking forward to seeing you all very soon.

38:58It'll be emotional for all of us this year and we're looking forward to moving on with our lives Absolutely Absolutely. Well, I think all that's left is to thank you very much for joining us, given your busy schedule on The Longshore. Thanks, everyone. See you all in the second. Bye, Steph.

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