Fine location: Guests enjoying an evening on a boat with Dubai’s Marina Waterfront skyline in the background. The city has become a top destination for financial professionals leaving Europe or Hong Kong. — AP
TOKYO: Nomura Holdings Inc is set to offer wealth management services in Dubai as the Japanese firm expands its Middle East presence to tap a growing pool of rich clients and the flow of funds to the region.
Adil Khan, group head for South-East Asia and the Middle East, will relocate to Dubai from Singapore to lead the business and plans to hire five to 10 relationship managers, according to Ravi Raju, the Singapore-based head of Nomura’s international wealth management unit, which manages about US$13.5bil (RM60bil) of assets.
“I’ve seen the growing importance of Dubai for many families doing business in the Indian sub-continent and other areas in the Middle East and Africa,” Raju said in an interview.
“It’s become a big centre like Singapore, and traditionally Hong Kong has been for families to establish and grow their base.”
Global banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Deutsche Bank AG, are vying to capture a bigger slice of the wealth management market in the Middle East, home to a large number of ultra-wealthy families, entrepreneurs and royals.
Dubai in particular has become a top destination for financial professionals leaving Europe or Hong Kong, as well as attracting an influx of capital since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Nomura said it has received in-principle approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Dubai Financial Services Authority to set up a wealth management relationship centre in the Middle East and will start operations once it gets a licence.
Nomura will target clients with US$25mil (RM111mil) of investable assets and an initial investment of about US$5mil (RM22mil), Raju said.
More than half of the bankers in its Dubai office will cover the non-resident Indian (NRI) market, Raju said.
The hub will be Nomura’s third offshore wealth centre, after Hong Kong and Singapore, where it books assets.
In Asia, Nomura has hired about 50 relationship managers since 2020, when Raju joined from UBS Group AG – more than half of these focus on the Greater China business.
During that time, the firm opened 1,000 new client accounts and added more than US$5.5bil (RM24bil) in net new money, according to Raju.
This year, the company has slowed in hiring “because the market has not been so positive,” Raju said, but it plans to increase the number of relationship managers to between 135 and 150 in the medium term, from around 90 currently.
In China, Nomura’s wealth business has also been impacted by the country’s strict Covid restrictions and an economic slowdown, but Raju expects things to pick up in the next few months.
For Indian clients, the firm plans to hire more relationship managers as the Asian nation bounces back after the pandemic.
“While China has remained closed, India has opened,” said Raju. “Because many NRIs have businesses in India, they are doing well.” — Bloomberg
