Finance Minister hails Malta ‘an attractive strategic hub’

Malta remains an attractive and strategic destination for companies worldwide, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said.

“Malta remains an attractive and strategic designation for companies worldwide within which to base their operations. This is thanks to the advantages we have to offer, such as economic stability, excellent IT connectivity, and a hard-working and English-speaking workforce, to name a few,” Scicluna said.

He was speaking during a visit of the deVere Group premises in Birkirkara. Scicluna was accompanied during the visit by deVere Group CEO Nigel Green and deVere Malta Director Beverley Yeomans.

deVere Group was established in 2002 with an office in Hong Kong and has grown to become one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations. Today it maintains a global presence that extends to cities such as New York, London, Dubai, Geneva, Tokyo, Shanghai and Cape Town.

deVere Group globally employs approximately 1,200 staff and manages in excess of $10bn on behalf of more than 80,000 clients in 100 countries.

deVere began operating in Malta in 2005. Today, the company locally employs 148 people, 87 of which are female and 61 are male. 73% of the office workforce is Maltese and 27% is foreign.

Scicluna described deVere’s Malta-based hub as a thriving and successful example of a back office administrative operation that caters for a global group.

He welcomed how the group chose Malta as the location for their strategic hub. He noted that as a company that employs almost 150 individuals, deVere represents a significant presence that is contributing to the economy.

“There is a misconception that global financial service are simply brass plate entities. For Malta this couldn’t be farther from the truth, and deVere, with its sizable operation that is clearly thriving and growing, is proof of this,” Scicluna said.

“We chose Malta because it represents an excellently located, central location from which we can operate in multiple timezones,” Nigel Green explained. “The IT infrastructure here is very good, and we are able to find extremely good and hard

working employees. We’re very happy to have our administrative hub based in Malta.”