left school at 18, uncertain of what he wanted to do other than to ‘earn some money.’ He joined the trading desk of a fund manager in the UK where his talents as a financier emerged from the chrysalis of disappointing secondary school and attracted the attention of the London branch of a Japanese bank which hired him to trade derivatives. He was ,living in a council flat in Deptford with his new bride. “I was trading against Barings Bank for much of the time and eventually they must have decided I was so much of a threat to their Japanese trades that they hired me to trade for them in Tokyo — where two of my daughters were born.” He was head of the bank’s Tokyo operations on the Saturday in February 1995 when he learned that, as a result of the trading failures of Nick Leason in Singapore the old and respected Baring Bank was ‘going under’ and was among those who attempted to salvage it — approaching the financial giant ING as a possible white knight. And although ING turned down their proposals, a year later Cowan was part of the new ING Baring. The rest is history. Well ‘sort of’, he admits. While in Marbella three years ago he was approached by Marcus Wohlrab, a friend on the international financial circuit who was planning to set up a stock exchange in Gibraltar. Was Cowan interested? He was... and, tempted by the challenge, began work to set up GSX. n
Castle joins GSX to list funds Castle Fund Administrators (CFA) has been accepted as a founding member of the new Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX) which will begin listing open-ended funds from this month and aims to appeal to non-EU funds, particularly in Asia and the US, as a preliminary step towards EU domiciliation.
October and forms part of the commitment by government and domestic service providers to promote Gibraltar as a business friendly jurisdiction and internationally recognised finance centre. Neil Gogan, a CFA director, commented: “We are finding an increasing proportion of our client base is considering the incorporation of some form of fund structure in their overall structures due to the implementation of AIFM
and our GSX Member status can bring significant benefits for them. “We have also found that a number of Caribbean–domiciled funds are seeking to set up feeder funds in Gibraltar. Assuming that they opt for full ‘in-scope’ AIFM status, feeder funds allow them to passport and market a fund across the EU from Gibraltar. “Some funds that have recently contacted us are even considering re-domiciling to Gibraltar,” said Neil, who previously worked for HSBC and Banco Santander and has experience in funds’ operations in his native Dublin, plus Madrid, Luxembourg and Gibraltar. n
Castle will act as listing agent of GSX, which provides a fast-to-market and cost effective service for collective investment schemes that wish to make themselves available to investors looking for greater transparency and visibility through an EU listing. Founded in 2007, CFA is a Gibraltar company fully regulated and authorised by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (FSC) to provide fund administration services, and CFA forms part of the 22 years old Castle Trust Group, which specialises in fund administration, company and trust management and international investment structures. GSX is a privately-funded enterprise that received its FSC stock exchange licence in
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GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • JANUARY 2015
15/12/2014 12:56