London-based Prudential plc announced today it has received a license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to operate as an authorised firm from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). It will use this base to access a largely untapped and growing wealth management opportunity by providing investors in the region access, via financial intermediaries, to its existing international fund range including its popular International Opportunities Funds (Luxembourg), Prudential ICICI Mutual Funds (India) and the M&G Funds (UK) range. It will also over time launch new funds backed by assets from the region.
Ajay Srinivasan, Chief Executive, Fund Management, Prudential Corporation Asia, said: “The Middle East has great potential for wealth management and this base at the DIFC gives us the opportunity to leverage our successful fund management operations to both access new customers and also cater to the growing Islamic finance sector. In due course we plan to launch conventional and Shari’ah-compliant funds backed by regional assets and these will also be made available to international investors”.
Prudential plc, through its international network of fund management operations, currently manages, as of June 2006, around US$430 billion of assets.
Assem O. Kabesh, Chief Business Development Officer and Board Member at the DIFC, said: “The DIFC is home to the Collective Investment Funds Law 2006 - the region’s first globally-recognised legal and regulatory environment for the funds industry. This allows companies like Prudential plc to expand their investor base and create new products that can be marketed to investors around the world”.
