Canada’s east coast is aiming to become the country’s next financial services hub.

For starters, the big news in Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, is the arrival of Amvescap PLC. The international investment-management firm, which operates as AIM Funds Management Ltd. in Canada, is opening a client service centre in Charlottetown that will employ up to 300 people.

And neighbouring Nova Scotia is basking in the glow of — not one, but three — new arrivals. Citco Fund Services, Olympia Capital International Inc. and Butterfield Fund Services (Bermuda) Ltd. , all Bermuda-based firms, have announced they are setting up shop in Halifax.

“There’s a buzz in Bermuda right now. We’re being called the next Dublin,” says Stephen Lund, president and CEO of Nova Scotia Business Inc. , the province’s business-development arm.

The Maritime provinces, particularly P.E.I. and Nova Scotia, have created that buzz by specifically targeting the financial services sector for growth. Economic development agencies in each province have sought out companies around the world that would be a good fit for the region.

“We’re really aggressive,” says Lund. And personable, too. One of the attributes the Maritimes is selling is its down-home hospitality. In the case of P.E.I., the personal touch came directly from Premier Pat Binns. Through an Amvescap portfolio manager originally from P.E.I., Binns requested a meeting with Phil Taylor, Amvescap’s senior managing director in Toronto, to discuss the advantage of setting up shop on the island.

“We met over coffee,” says Taylor, “and Binns outlined his strategy and vision to attract top-tier financial companies to P.E.I. My immediate thought was: ‘Yes’.”

NSBI is building on a long-standing relationship with Bermuda to get its “yes.” Students from that country frequently come to study in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Local accountants often head in the other direction, leaving the region to work in Bermuda.

Once on terra nova, company representatives are treated like royalty. Politicians and business people turn out to meet with them and to tout the benefits of doing business in the province. Expensive dinners, personal pickups and drop-offs, and attention to every request are all part of the welcome package.

That package also includes extensive information about why Canada’s East Coast is a prime location for the financial services sector. Although each province highlights its own strengths, those strengths are remarkably similar: educated young people, access to a bilingual workforce, high-end technology and all the necessary infrastructure.

In the case of the Bermuda companies, remaining in the same time zone is another plus.

As are the financial incentives offered to firms. Amvescap is eligible for a special tax credit, which “will support the company’s long-term presence in P.E.I.,” says Michael Currie, minister of development and technology.

“The major contribution from the province is the innovation and development tax rebate that has been modified to meet the company’s needs. The agreement is a 10-year agreement with rebates of 15% on gross labour for the first three years and 7.5% from years four through 10,” he notes.

In return, Amvescap will open a new global enterprise centre in the spring of 2007. Initially the centre will focus on Amvescap’s retail businesses around the world. But, cautions Taylor, don’t confuse the facility with a run-of-the-mill telemarketing call centre: “The P.E.I. centre will act in a client-relations capacity. It is more high-end, dealing with financial advisors who are clients, investors and back offices.”

The Bermuda triad was lured to Halifax with the promise of payroll rebates. Citco, the leading global provider of administrative services to the hedge fund industry, will receive a rebate of up to $7 million over the next seven years. Butterfield, which manages more than US$65 billion in hedge fund and mutual fund assets, will get an incremental rebate up to a maximum of $9.1 million over the next seven years as the company reaches job targets. And Olympia Capital, an international hedge fund administrator, will receive a maximum payroll rebate of $1.5 million over a five-year period, along with a recruitment and training incentive package from the Office of Economic Development worth $300,000.

For its money, Nova Scotia gets established companies putting down roots, paying local taxes, hiring new graduates and luring expats back to native soil. It also gets the seeds of a flourishing new industry.

@page_break@Growth is a central component of each deal. Citco, established in Canada since 1992, is opening an office that will include a new centre of excellence to train employees from across North America. At present, Citco has only one other office in Canada, in Toronto, which has 350 employees. The opening of the Halifax office is expected to step up expansion of the firm’s growth in the country. “We see Halifax as a strategic centre to develop our Canadian operations,” says William Keunen, Citco’s global director.

Butterfield plans to add 30 to 60 positions in Halifax in 2007, and hopes to grow that number to 400 by 2014. The new positions will offer opportunities for a wide range of financial professionals, from recent business graduates to senior accounting professionals from all over the world.

Olympia Capital is expanding its Toronto-based financial services division, OC Financial Services Inc. , and bringing up to 150 new jobs to Halifax.

For all these firms, their new East Coast ventures are their first ventures in this part of the world. Most have offices and operations around the globe. IE