The Story of Our Journey in Abu Dhabi

Let me take the opportunity to welcome everyone here uh to Abu Dhabi Finance Week in ADGM. Uh it's an it's a pretty amazing venue and you know thank you all for being here. Uh I today have the distinct pleasure and honor to to speak to what people call the macro god uh Alan Hawward. uh Allan through his eponymous uh hedge fund Brevan uh have you know now been in Abu Dhabi for over 3 years. So maybe Alan that'll be a good place for us to start.

So 3 years ago uh we met here in Abu Dhabi and then in London and we were discussing about potentially what could Brevin do with ADGM. We've clearly come a long way since then, but I it'd be good for me to kind of go back to the beginning and say what was the thinking behind Revan set up in Abu Dhabi and EDGM.

Thank you, Alvin. So many reasons for why we set up here and a few years ago when I came here the the thing that strikes you straight away is the regulation strong regulation pro business regulation and when I met his excellency Ahmed Jazzim al- Zabi understanding his vision of regulating traditional markets as well as the digital markets and that was extremely important for us uh which I will discuss later other reasons that came came into my thinking were UK rule of law. The AGM is set up under UK rule of law gave us confidence uh for the future and to have long-term commitment. Uh the time zone is a fantastic time zone for trading global macro uh particularly um in the middle of all the middle of all the action here and that's great for a lot of our traders and the UAE was the first country to sign the Abraham Accords in 2019. Um, and my my good friend David AJ, he uh built he was the architect that won the won the competition to build the Abrahamic family house.

Uh, so I had seen a mockup of it and I wanted to go and see it in in person. And when you go there, it's incredible uh how this the only place in the world I I believe where you have a a church, a mosque, and a synagogue all in the same park. And really the message for me from that was that this place is open for business from wherever you are. So really it was actually a very easy rational decision to make uh to come here and I was still committed to be here for the long run and long-term commitment

and I mean you've got you you have been our partners for the last three years. Um I think moving on from there I mean clearly a lot has happened in the last three years Alan. I mean there's been the Lunette investment there's been growing the ADGM presence what has been the most kind of memorable exciting part of that journey I mean it's been a it's been a great journey together kind of what would be your big takeaways from that journey

so after after my visit here a few months uh few years ago we set up within three or four months we're already ready going with 15 people and now we have 150 people here y

and I think the reason why we have so many people is because they love being here and they know that we our commitment internally and externally to be here for the long run. Once employees see that they want to be part of that journey and now we have more money managed here than anywhere else in the world for us. U more traders, more money managed here and I think that's going to continue to grow. The second thing is we've been extremely happy. the the regulation has in both areas been very good and that that and innovative and when we came here in the port we came here we had hardly any money in LPS from the region at all but I was committed to long run and so long as we have good products which produced performing well of course over time we would like in any any place uh raise um LP money and this summer um We struck a partnership with Lunate where they have committed uh long-term capital as an LP to our funds as well as taking a strategic stake in the company and on top of that we are developing joint products together under them for distribution in the region.

So extremely excited by that which has come just a couple of months ago.

Wonderful. uh you know and probably the third question from my end is you know as we continue down this Falcon economy strategy you know one of the core elements for us has always been learning from the best right and innovating and improvising from the best so given what you've seen uh you know in Abu Dhabi and specifically in ADGM uh what would be because you operate around the world you're regulated by multiple regulators u what do you think are the key things for us to focus on or improve going forward

more office space. We we've run out and we have a wait list of people that want to come. So, we're going to take more space here. That's the first thing.

There was a big decision. There was a big announcement today morning.

There's going to be a lot more space coming up on the island. Yeah.

But Abu Dhabi is clearly on its way to become a global financial center. And I said a few years ago, I thought it could be the third leg or one of the three legs with New York and London. And I think it's fully on that way to already be there to do what to to be that which is which is going to continue to do it's means trading of global capital markets and because there is an ecosystem and as more uh asset managers and banks come here and trading in all assets increases you do get a flywheel effect where there's a ratio of three or four to one of service providers versus people managing money. So I think over time I can see um Abu Duru doing its own way by doing um growing a financial center here not only traditional markets but also in digital markets. So I think there is and I think that it's well on its way to becoming that third center.

What really the question is can others learn from Abu Dhabi and uh I was with my executive chairman Carlos Hernandez uh who who was at JP Morgan for 37 years running everything there. um under Jamie um Diamond to we went to Al Salvador two or three weeks ago and it's extremely impressive what's happening there under President Ble who has a 91% approval rating and but there are characteristics of what's happening there that I can see here in terms of safety excellent regulation pro business government involvement um f t tax advantages fiscal advantages and strategic thinking so I some of the things I can I see here we can see there some so that's I think there are things that we learn from both

that's wonderful and I think now to the kind of final question I guess we're running out of time but the final question from my end if I was to look through a crystal maze and as a macro investor you're used to looking through a crystal maze um what do you think the future holds both for bre uh but also for this partnership with Abu Dhabi

so so bre used to be a big a hedge funer but under and under Aaron Landership Aaron Landy's land leadership as CEO of the company the company's transformed from a hedge fund to an alternative asset manager it's a multi-manager multifund asset management platform using macro expertise and intelligence across all asset classes but clearly tech enabled and infused as well as looking at digital assets. So as we continue to grow that alternative asset management platform under Aaron um I think this will be where we'll have more and more of our people be and more and more of our money being managed. Secondly, we decided a few years ago to get involved in in digital assets. At the time it wasn't that popular um and it wasn't that popular but I was convinced that that there's going to be some combination or mer of um the traditional markets and the digital markets in some form or other specifically in the infrastructure zone. So we want to get involved in the digital ecosystem and the ADGM has exactly the same vision that there is.

We'll see how it turns out. There going to be some combination of the two of of infrastructure with both of these markets. So that's it's extremely exciting for us to be here with a regulator that has the same vision that we do. If you think about uh since then um last week there was an excellent article by Larry Frink and Rob Goldstein from BlackRock talking about tokenization.

Yeah. So clearly others obviously feel the same way. This is the this is this is the way uh of the future that um we'll see how it turns out but being here is is essential for us for that reason and there are a lot of companies to invest here that although the although the infrastructure is not ready completely for these transformations there are a lot of companies that we can invest in here that allow us to be here and that's why we love being here. That's wonderful. I think as you said, Alan, that convergence between Prattfi and DeFi, I think you've been at the cutting edge of it.

As ADGM, we've been on this journey since 2018. So, I guess we're national partners in that sense. Alan, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate you being here with us. Thank you so much.

Thank you all. Thank you very much.