Aberdeen Asset Management Australia’s boss, Charlie Macrae, has left us for London but he should have considered returning home if results of a competition run by Foreign Direct Investment magazine are anything to go by.
While Frank ‘Positioning for Growth’ Cicutto famously dismissed it as having “been in permanent recession for 200 years”, Scotland has beaten 38 other European regions to be named ‘European Region of the Future 2008’ by the mag’s judging panel of big wheels on the cross-border investment scene.
According to Scottish Development International, “the magazine’s judges were impressed with Scotland as a whole and its ambitious plans to develop the River Clyde, which is set to create 33,000 jobs. They were also impressed by developments such as Edinburgh BioQuarter and the Seabraes Yard digital media park in Dundee, recent investment by Scotland’s universities, improved airline routes and by the fact that over 1,500 foreign owned companies have set up and are registered in Scotland.”
More than a few of those 1500 would be funds managers resident in Edinburgh, a small city whose claims on being a ‘regional financial services hub’ still put the efforts of Sydney and Melbourne to shame.
