Financial Times has reported that the offshore funds industry is booming again in the Channel Islands.
At the end of December 2006 the total assets of funds serviced in Jersey reached 179.1bn, up 30 percent on the year. A few miles away in the slightly smaller jurisdiction of Guernsey the total reached 130.2bn at the end of the year, having risen by 30 percent in 12 months.
In the parallel UK offshore jurisdiction of the Isle of Man the funds industry is much smaller, but it has been picking up a fair turn of speed. Total funds reached 41.9bn at the same date, having jumped by two-thirds in a year and, indeed, having more than quadrupled in just three years.
These islands are still relative minnows in the global asset pool, however. They are dwarfed by Dublin, which represents formidable competition as an onshore/offshore hybrid in the European zone of the funds industry. Ireland’s asset total climbed by 25 percent last year to €727bn (about 500bn).
And in trying to penetrate the fashionable hedge funds sector the Channel Islands are up against the entrenched opposition of Caribbean offshore centers led by Cayman. More than 8,100 funds have been registered in Cayman, putting into perspective the 274 “expert collective investment funds” in Jersey and a smaller number in Guernsey.