Setting Up a Fund Manager in ADGM? Here's the Office You'll Need

Fund managers arrive with a recurring knot to untangle: a structure with several moving parts, and uncertainty over which need premises. The answer isn't "all" or "none" — it depends on the role each entity plays. Map it correctly and the office decision is straightforward.

The regulated manager needs a real private office

The fund manager itself is a regulated entity supervised by the FSRA. Regulated firms must have genuine substance — a real place of business able to house staff and securely store client and investor records, where the regulator can locate and, if needed, inspect them. In practice that means a private office, not a shared desk. It's part of demonstrating the firm genuinely operates from ADGM.

The SPVs and funds usually need no premises

Beneath or alongside the manager sit special purpose vehicles holding assets, and the funds themselves. SPVs are the well-known office exception — passive structuring vehicles that can't hire staff and can use a service provider's registered address. The funds, depending on structure, similarly may not need premises. So one group can legitimately contain entities that need an office and entities that don't.

Mapping structure to space

• The regulated manager → a private office (the office requirement lives here).
• SPVs and most fund vehicles → no premises of their own.

Get this right at the outset and you neither overspend on vehicles that don't need space nor under-provide for the manager that does.

What the manager's office should look like — and cost

For most emerging and mid-size managers, a private office gives the substance the FSRA expects without a whole floor: confidential investor meeting space, room for the team, secure storage, a credible base. On Al Reem that's delivered for the same ADGM licence at a fraction of Al Maryah's cost — desks from AED 1,200/month and private offices well below the ~AED 5,000 core rate.

Related: FSRA office requirements, how SPVs work, and why asset managers choose ADGM.

Talk to MY Coworking

We offer private office packages built for regulated firms — the genuine premises the FSRA expects of a fund manager, at a sensible Al Reem cost. Let us show you the options.

We're on Al Reem Island — 2312 Addax Tower, City of Lights, Abu Dhabi. Email contact@mycoworking.ae to book a tour or get a same-day quote.