GLG Partners has become the latest large hedge fund to see staff depart its UK offices for Switzerland because of higher personal tax rates.

Pierre Lagrange, co-founder of the group which was recently merged with Man Group, said a handful of employees have moved to Pfaffikon in Switzerland. Man has a large office in Pfaffikon with about 500 of its 1,500 permanent employees based there.

“We have offices in quite a few jurisidictions so we have quite some flexibility. If staff want to go, absolutely they can but few have gone,” Lagrange said.

Switzerland’s tax rates are somewhat flexible. The higher-rate taxpayers earning more than £150,000 incur 50% income tax in the UK.

GLG’s hedge fund rivals Brevan Howard and Amplitude Capital have relocated staff or whole offices to Switzerland. BlueCrest Capital Management moved its corporate headquarters and staff to Guernsey.

Lagrange said: “You have to recreate a new fabric and it is a question of how you do your job in a different location. There are still things [colleagues] need to be together for at some stages which is massively important.”

He said the lure of Latin America, the Middle East and Asia posed a “much bigger risk in the longer term” than does Switzerland to established centres such as London and New York.

Lagrange said the numbers of financiers moving to Geneva would grow “but I am more concerned about Asia”.

He added the European Union’s plans to regulate alternative fund managers through the alternative investment fund managers (AIFM) directive was an “interesting discovery process for the authorities” rather than a cause of concern for the industry.

It was also not, as some had feared, a major impetus for managers to leave Europe, where the effects of the regulation would be felt the most although it will also impact US fund managers with European investors or those who want to market funds into the EU.

“London is still one of the best places on the planet to operate [from]. But [London] has to be cognisant of the risks and not from New York, but from Dubai, Hong Kong and Rio De Janeiro,” Lagrange concluded.