Fifteen years ago, it would have been strange for young Americans or Scandinavians to do business with UAE fund managers. These days, every young person from the West seems to have had that experience. Far from it being confined to real estate, interest has now moved to the institutional level, as domestic capital markets have surged in activity, with listed UAE companies having found themselves in the coveted MSCI Emerging markets index.
But in many cases, the interest has moved beyond that hallowed list, and people have found that one of the ways to sell equities to foreign fund managers has been the fact that others have also bought. Nothing moves Western fund managers so surely as the fear of being left behind.
