Billionaire James Dyson’s Family Office Hiring in Singapore
Billionaire James Dyson’s Family Office Hiring in Singapore
(Bloomberg) -- The family office of James Dyson, the billionaire founder of vacuum cleaning giant Dyson Ltd., has incorporated in Singapore and is in the process of hiring IT and financial-services staff.
Weybourne Group Ltd. is looking to build a team of senior staff in the city-state, according to job advertisements posted on Dyson’s website. The family office was established in 2013 and employs around 55 people globally. James Dyson, who earlier this year decided to relocate the company’s head office to Singapore from the U.K., has a net worth of about $11.9 billion, making him the U.K.’s second-richest person.
Singapore has proven a popular place to set up a family office because of its high standard of living, plethora of international tax treaties and strict privacy rules. The number of family offices quadrupled between 2016 and 2018, Monetary Authority of Singapore data show.
Weybourne Services Singapore Pte was incorporated on Jan. 31. A treasury analyst role being advertised on the website notes that any successful applicant will need to help manage the cash and funding requirements of the group while dealing with foreign-currency transactions. Swiss private bank Lombard Odier is a banker to Weybourne, according to a filing to Singapore’s Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.
“This reflects the announcement, made back in January, that the top company would be moving to Singapore to reflect the increasing significance of the region,” Dyson said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.
The family office’s expansion is further evidence Dyson’s commitment to Singapore is more than skin deep. The appliance maker plans to hire extensively across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, and Dyson himself has snapped up several luxury properties on the island.
RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP Partner Benjamin Szeto said Singapore is an attractive base for family offices because of its political stability, its connection to global markets and range of tax incentives.
“Singapore is pretty well known to have an extensive array of direct double taxation agreements with many countries,” said Szeto, who is also deputy head of the law firm’s private wealth practice. Those arrangements show the nation is “held in high regard by others around the world.”
--With assistance from Chanyaporn Chanjaroen and Bei Hu.
To contact the reporters on this story: David Ramli in Singapore at dramli1@bloomberg.net;Joyce Koh in Singapore at jkoh38@bloomberg.net;Yoolim Lee in Singapore at yoolim@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Katrina Nicholas at knicholas2@bloomberg.net, Peter Vercoe
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