London traders are joining hedge funds in Abu Dhabi & Dubai again: "I will miss the trees, but I have to make a choice"

Three months ago, we told the sorry tale of a senior London trader who was stuck in an Abu Dhabi hotel when the war in the Middle East began. "Anyone who wants to stay here is delusional," he declared. 

Now the war is seemingly over, and there are suggestions that the people with delusions are not in the UAE, but in London, where the government is precarious and higher taxes seem inevitable.  "The Andy Burnham situation is encouraging me to leave," says one senior London trader. "The UK is taxing people more and more and Dubai is now completely back to normal. It's a good time to go to the UAE, with real estate prices so low."

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As we reported earlier, Daniel Dangoor, a senior macro trader at Goldman Sachs in London, has just gone to hedge fund ExodusPoint in Dubai. Balyasny Asset Management is building out an office in Abu Dhabi under Yash Agarwal. Citadel is building a fixed income and macro pod in Dubai and registered four people there (Shadi Dajani in compliance, Anand Lakhani, Steven Atkinson and Melwani) in late April; three of them came from London.

One top portfolio manager who spent nearly a decade in London tells us he returned to Dubai in late April. "I came back on April 25th. It's completely safe here," he says. "The kids are going to school and back to playing football. It's been like this for over a month now."

Another London trader tells us he's moving Dubai with his two young children. "Dubai is safer than London for kids," he says. "You see people here who leave their phones on deckchairs to reserve them. There's very little crime because everyone's an expat and they know that if they get into trouble they will be immediately deported." 

The UAE's historic appeal was based around its lack of personal income tax, but traders say this has broadened out. "The UAE is not a fringe choice any more," say one London trader. "The exodus of high quality people has been big enough that there's a large community there who you can bounce ideas off." 

While the UAE has pull factors, London-traders say the UK has push factors. These are not only government instability and the prospect of higher income tax, but the removal of non-dom status and the challenge of bringing family members into the country. One trader says he tried to bring his elderly relative to the UK to be nearer family members, but that the immigration application was refused. "It's crazy when you consider how much income tax I've been paying, and how many other people are coming into the country," he reflects. In the UAE, this relative could join him.

Not all London traders are tempted by the UAE though. One, who considered moving before the war, says jobs at hedge funds in Dubai or Abu Dhabi now come with a "tail risk". "I wouldn't want to take that risk," he says. Another agrees that it's "too close to the conflict zone." The pollution there is also "awful," he says.

The anti-UAE camp includes London traders who tell us they don't like shopping nor shopping malls. One says it it took him 10 years to become British and that he intends to remain in the UK: "I prefer to support England from my sofa and I don't want 40 degrees of heat every day." This trader is discouraged, too, by the lack of free speech in the Emirates: "I am a citizen of the free western world and I won't sell my freedom for tax savings." If British taxes increase, he says he will simply hedge this by buying gilts. 

Even the London traders decamping to Dubai admit there may be downsides. "I will miss the trees, but I have to make a choice," says one who's left the UK. Trees are a European thing, he reflects; there are at least some trees in the atrium to his condominium.

Another portfolio manager who has been in Dubai for a few years, says he's very happy for London traders to hesitate before leaving. "I don't want them to come here," he tells us. "I like Dubai when it's not overcrowded and I don't want residential property prices to increase again." 

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