The global hedge fund industry showed impressive resilience amid economic uncertainty, financial market volatility and plummeting asset valuations in 2022. Still, more established hubs including New York and London saw the highest hedge fund capital outflows during the year.

Several of these hedge funds have already begun to expand into new emerging markets as operating environments in their native markets become increasingly challenging. Moreover, being long-established markets, they no longer offer growth prospects or incentives with cost efficiencies that can compete with those available in emerging hubs.

Hedge funds are showing increasing interest in Dubai as a gateway to the region, looking to establish a presence in DIFC – a rising global hub for alternative investments and hedge funds. DIFC has more than 60 hedge funds already registered or in the pipeline.

DIFC has successfully attracted increasing interest from many of these hedge funds during the pandemic, which highlighted the Centre’s comprehensive range of ecosystem benefits, including operational convenience, supportive regulation, enabling innovation, a wide network of supporting businesses and Dubai’s attractiveness for topnotch talent.

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The “Dubai: The next global hedge fund centre” report is the first in a series of reports covering recent trends emerging in Dubai’s financial industry, a collaboration between DIFC and Refinitiv, a London Stock Exchange Group business. The report provides key statistics on the global hedge fund industry and insights on the expansion of established hedge funds into Dubai, in addition to outlining DIFC’s value proposition as a gateway to the MEASA region and as a future global hub for hedge funds.