Ex-Barclays CEO Bob Diamond warns London is losing to Dubai

Financier Bob Diamond views Dubai as the main destination for wealthy Londoners relocating after London's tax policy changes, the former Barclays CEO said Wednesday at the Dubai Business Forum in New York.

“Dubai has the English language, it has the investment in technology, it increasingly has the schools,” said Diamond. “And as London makes one poor decision after another in terms of London as a financial sector, it impacts the listings on the London Stock Exchange versus New York. People talk about the challenge that London will have with Frankfurt and Dublin and other European [cities]. The challenge is the Middle East, and the challenge is Dubai.”

Wednesday’s event was hosted by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce as the city announced the opening of its first US office in New York City. Diamond, who resigned from Barclays in 2012 amid the bank’s rate-fixing scandal, mentioned the UK government’s non-dom tax reform and inheritance tax as “backwards steps” for London’s position as a financial center.

“Dubai is where people want to live,” said Diamond, who now leads Atlas Merchant Capital. “They've taken a serious interest in developing geopolitical relations with the US There is a deep relationship, you see Dubai here in New York City. We see Dubai represented in Washington.”

The United Arab Emirates, which Dubai is part of, notably provided several billions to Barclays alongside other sovereign investors from Qatar as the British bank sought to avoid a UK government bailout during the 2008 financial crisis. Speakers at Wednesday’s forum highlighted Dubai’s friendly government regulations and innovation in AI, digital assets and tokenization as momentum for the city’s appeal as a wealth hub.

“Dubai has an opportunity to be the capital of the world in tokenization, because you already had an early start,” RSE Ventures CEO and Shark Tank investor Matt Higgins said at the event. “Because it's such a culture of creativity and experimentation, there're endless use cases for the tokenization of real world assets, and the world is at a tipping point of adoption.”

The Dubai Business Forum in NYC featured UAE government officials as well as speakers from Goldman Sachs, Citi, BNY, Bank of America, and other institutions. The event was hosted in partnership with Semafor, a media outlet co-founded by former Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith.

“We have a lot of family office clients in Dubai, specifically in the broader region,” said Jose Minaya, BNY’s global head of investments and wealth. “We’re trying to manage capital for people on the ground, and looking at investments in real estate and technology, which was something that we weren't really looking at before.”

The UAE government’s D33 Agenda aims to double Dubai’s GDP by 2033.

“If you were to ask any American investor, how many Chinese companies sit in the DIFC, which is one of the big free trade zones in Dubai today, they would have no idea that half of them are Chinese. And the Chinese have really used Dubai as their beachhead into Africa, very successfully,” said Citi managing director Stephanie von Friedeburg.

“Geographically, it can actually be the financial bridge that gets us 24 by seven continually trading. Perfect in time zone, really well situated. Geopolitically, they have done a masterful job balancing the west and the east,” von Friedeburg said.