Hedge fund Dymon Asia opens first Middle East office in Dubai

Singapore's Dymon Asia Capital has opened its first office in the Middle East based in Dubai to capitalise on the time zone and capture more investment talent in that region, the hedge fund manager said.

The Dubai office, which the $3 billion multi-strategy hedge fund opened in November, is the fund's ninth globally, and came after it secured a category 3C licence from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), the firm said.

A raft of other hedge fund giants including Balyasny Asset Management and ExodusPoint Capital Management as well as an increasing number of Asian fund managers have set up operations and built teams in the Middle East in recent years, lured by its tax-free status and business-friendly environment.

"The main reason we chose to set up an office in Dubai was because it was the location of choice for most investment professionals in the region," Kenneth Kan, deputy CEO at Dymon Asia, told Reuters in a phone interview from Dubai earlier this week.

Dubai has built a rich talent pool as large funds expand there, attracting investment professionals from the UK and Europe, Kan said. In addition, portfolio managers who trade global strategies, such as macro and relative value strategies, find being based in the UAE is ideal, he said.

"The time zone is more favorable, as they can trade Asian, European and US markets during regular office hours," Kan said.

The Dubai International Financial Centre estimates in its blog 40 hedge funds in the billion-dollar league managing more than $720 billion had established offices in the centre by May.

Dymon is one of Asia's largest multi-manager hedge funds that deploys capital to multiple strategies on equities, credit and currencies, run by different specialist portfolio managers.

The firm's flagship fund gained 13.4 per cent this year through November, mainly from Asia-focused equity long-short, relative value and macro strategies.

Dymon Asia kicked off its Dubai office with two portfolio managers, and the firm expects to grow the team to five by January.

Anuj Mehrotra, an emerging markets equity specialist, joined Dymon Asia's Dubai team in November from Millennium Management, according to his LinkedIn profile.