Notz, Stucki & Cie, a Geneva-based asset management firm with $7.5bn in assets under management, has selected Bahrain as the location for its regional office in the Middle East.
The news comes two weeks before the first anniversary of protests that rocked the Gulf kingdom last February, and were subsequently quelled with help from Saudi Arabian troops and tanks.
The new office, located in the East Tower building of Bahrain Financial Harbour in Manama, brings to seven the number of Notz, Stucki outposts worldwide. In addition to its main office in Geneva and the new offices in Bahrain, Notz, Stucki currently has a presence in Zürich, London, Bermuda, Luxembourg and Singapore.
Notz Stuki’s decision to locate in Bahrain follows the opening of offices there last year by at least three other major financial services businesses – AMP Capital Investors, Deloitte Corporate Finance and Canara Bank – according to a statement announcing Notz, Stucki’s Bahrain office opening.
In the statement, Notz Stucki general manager Maria-Sofia Kourti cited Bahrain’s “long history of hosting financial services institutions in the region in all economic environments”, and noted that it had positioned itself as a major regional financial hub, with an “excellent infrastructure and a superior regulatory system”.
The country’s Economic Development Board (EDB)had also been supportive, Kourti said.
According to EDB data, the financial sector in the Kingdom grew by 1.7% in the twelve months to June 2011, and the number of licensed financial firms in the Kingdom now stands at 414, compared with 406 at the end of 2010.
Notz, Stuki was founded in Geneva in 1964 as an asset management firm, and was one of the first to identify the potential offered by hedge funds. It was an early backer of such hedge fund industry pioneers as George Soros, Paul Tudor Jones and Louis Bacon, before creating its own funds a decade later.
