Goldman and UBS Lead Wall Street’s Latest Push Into Middle East - Bloomberg

Goldman and UBS Lead Wall Street’s Latest Push Into Middle East - Bloomberg

Up and down Wall Street, executives are readying new plans to expand in the Middle East, days after countries across the region flexed that they have more than $2 trillion of firepower to put to work in the US.

UBS Group AG is planning to open a new office in Abu Dhabi, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. said it would add more than 100 staffers to its businesses across the Middle East in coming years. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for its part, is also looking to open more outposts and boost headcount in cities throughout the region.

“It is a very exciting time for everybody to be thinking about this,” Mary Callahan Erdoes, who leads JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management business, said at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. “You can feel it when you’re here live and in person.”

For years, Wall Street banks have been rapidly expanding across the Middle East, where many countries are undergoing multi-billion-dollar investment programs in order to remake their economies and be less dependent on oil. Much of that is being orchestrated by the region’s wealth funds, which control over $4 trillion in assets.

In addition to that ongoing work, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates together committed to make vast outlays to the US as part of President Donald Trump’s trip through the Middle East this month.

For Wall Street — that all boils down to one thing: deals and the lucrative fees that come with advising these countries on that work.

At Goldman, executives are already banking on a strong pipeline of initial public offerings in the region, which could create “more opportunities for international investors to make money from the region,” according to Marc Nachmann, global head of asset and wealth management.

“The Middle East provides attractive risk/return opportunities,” he said at the event in Doha.

UBS, meanwhile, is hoping to capitalize on the flood of wealthy individuals leaving countries like the UK for low-tax cities across the Middle East with its newest office.

“The Middle East has definitely been a winner for private individuals that have been moving away from higher-tax regimes, other places and other locations like the UK,” said Bea Martin, who is president of the bank’s businesses across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. “We’ve seen that migration of clients.”

Cities in the UAE have emerged as magnets for the world’s wealthiest people over the past few years. Abu Dhabi’s financial center has fielded a rush of inquiries from the UK, where the Labour government has rolled back preferential tax treatment for so-called non-domiciled residents, Bloomberg News has previously reported.

With JPMorgan’s planned hiring spree in the coming years, the bank’s headcount in the region will reach about 500, up from 370 now, Erdoes said. That’s a far cry from the 100 or so employees it had in the region immediately following the financial crisis.

It’s not just big banks that are looking to make moves in the Middle East, asset managers are also looking to deepen their foothold with Ashmore Group Plc announcing plans to open an office in Qatar.

The emerging markets-focused fund manager manages $10 billion on behalf of Middle East clients, according to a statement, and its Ashmore Qatar Equity Fund has delivered returns of nearly 20% since its inception at the start of last year.

Stock indexes across the region have managed to hold up despite the chaos that enveloped global markets after Trump unveiled plans to levy his “Liberation Day” tariffs on many trading partners around the world. Property markets across the Gulf, too, have defied expectations, drawing in a slew of top real estate investors.

Todd Boehly, the co-owner of Premier League club Chelsea, was among speakers at the event on Tuesday. The billionaire said he’s spending time in Saudi Arabia, looking to build out the insurance industry in the region’s largest economy, and was effusive in his praise for the Middle East.

He predicted the Gulf would emerge as the most exciting part of the world for the next two decades. UBS’s Martin echoed his thoughts.

“This region is one of the winners of the current economic situation,” she said. “Everything that has been happening when you look at markets — definitely post-Liberation Day — these markets have been more stable than others.”