Welcome to Belair Real Estate Malta
Welcome to Belair Real Estate Malta
Malta Lures Hedge Funds With 300 Days of Sun Aided by EU Rules
By Jeremy Kahn - Jan 5, 2012 1:00 AM GMT+0100
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
Erik Nelson was working in Stamford, Connecticut, as a research analyst at FMG USA LLC, the U.S. arm of FMG, a fund of funds specializing in emerging and frontier markets, when his bosses called him into a meeting in September 2009.
They had recently moved FMG‘s corporate headquarters to Malta from Bermuda and now they wanted Nelson, 27 at the time, to head up the new office. “I‘ll have to think about it,” Nelson replied. Then he went home and tried to find Malta on a map.
Three months later, the young American touched down on the rocky, sun-drenched island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, joining a wave of hedge-fund executives washing up on Malta‘s shores, lured by low taxes, cheap labor and a coveted address inside the European Union, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its February issue.
As of early November, the number of funds located in Malta had grown to more than 500 with 8 billion euros ($10.7 billion) under management from 165 funds with less than 5 billion euros under management in 2006, according to the Malta Financial Services Authority, or MFSA.
While that‘s not much compared with Luxembourg, which has more than 143 billion euros under management across more than 700 hedge funds and funds of hedge funds, the number of funds in Malta and the amount of their assets are expanding.
Since the end of 2010, the number of funds increased almost 30 percent and their total assets were up nearly 15 percent as of early December.