Tom Tracy, chief executive of Forth Capital, told International Adviser that the revenues generated and projected from its office in the DIFC just did not justify the high cost of the infrastructure and the regulation involved in running the operation.
“We had three major issues to contend with,” Tracy said. “Volatility in the oil price which was exacerbated by the recent drops in Sterling, real difficulty in finding high quality people on the ground in the UAE who were experienced in UK financial services and the high cost of regulation in the DIFC,” he said.
“We will look after our MENA client book from our Geneva base where we have recently taken on three new consultants to deal with the influx of enquiries from Europe post Brexit,” he added.
End of key office
The move out of the UAE is a big step for Forth Capital because it was in Dubai in 2004 that the company was first established, though Tracy moved it to Geneva not long after opening.
Forth Capital only returned to the Emirates 10 years later to build an operation emanating from an office in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, which it still owns. Tracy then took the decision to move to the DIFC, where it wasn’t until April 2015 that the company got its licence to operate.
Forth Capital move out of the DIFC follows a similar decision by Killik & Co which closed its office in the DIFC, the firm’s only presence outside the UK, at the end of September. Killik now services all its global clients from the company’s London headquarters.
The move by Forth Capital and Killik is in contrast with UK-headquartered AES International, which opened a new office in the DIFC at the end of June.
