WEST PALM BEACH, FL (www.HedgeCo.Net) – The hedge fund industry of Singapore has grown at a ferocious rate during the past 3 years. According to a new published report, the industry has grown fromabout 8 hedge funds about three years ago to 52 hedge funds today. However, there are some unresolved problems confronting the industry. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, taxation and regulationissues are still largely unresolved.
Industry observers think such matters have hampered additional growth of the industry. Currently Singaporean regulators require foreign funds operating in the country to have at least 80% of their investment assets from overseas in order to benefit from tax-exemption.
Deepak Kaul, Manager of Corporate Tax Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers said, �They probably have to re-look at the 80-20 rule, I think the easiest thing to do is to relax the in-position of the 80-20 rule, maybe make it applicable over a period of time. In which case then, even fund managers who are not meeting the 80-20 rule initially will be incentivised to actually start up in Singapore.”
The majority of the hedge funds attracted to Singapore are generally specialist hedge funds and many of them are based in India, Japan, or Korea. There is growing interest in Islamic products in Singapore as well.
According to Justin Ong, Partner, Banking & Capital Markets, PricewaterhouseCoopers, �One other trend will also be in Islamic products where fund managers are seeing a lot of interest generated especially the Middle Eastern money which is trying to look for an avenue for investment away from traditional products. So increasingly, we are going to find a lot of hedge funds setting up with Islamic type of products.”
Paul Oranika
Editor-in-Chief
HedgeCo.Net
Email: [email protected]
HedgeCo.Net is the most popular hedge fund database and community in the world. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Be sure to check out our sister sites. www.hedgefundlounge.com, www.hedgefundtools.com, and www.hedgefundemployment.com.
