Nine years after Man Group Plc (EMG)'s arrival put Pfaeffikon in the vanguard of Swiss efforts to make the Alpine nation a haven for hedge funds, the offices the town promoted for immigrating money managers are almost empty.

Pfaeffikon's struggle to become a beneficiary of the anticipated exodus from the higher taxes and greater regulation that supposedly imperiled London as international city of choice for making money out of money is revealing, according to Joe Seet, a senior partner at Sigma Partnership, a London-based accounting and advisory firm. Traders "rely on being close to where market knowledge is, and that's London," he said.

That's a notion not even London Mayor Boris Johnson dared to articulate when more than a year ago he said the U.K. government's plan for a 50 percent income tax may prompt as many as 9,000 bankers to leave the city. The Financial Times nine months later reported that one in four employees of hedge funds was fleeing to Switzerland.

The latest figures show such predictions were about as accurate as the AAA-ratings on so many collateralized debt obligations that precipitated the collapse of credit markets and the subsequent recession in 2008. London accounted for almost 70 percent of Europe's $423 billion of hedge fund assets at the end of 2010, compared with 5 percent for all of Switzerland -- data that hasn't changed much the past five years -- according to EuroHedge, which has covered the industry since 1999.

David Fuller's view London has a lot going for it but no one should not take its position as a major financial centre for granted. Every enterprising city in a position to pitch for this business will do so. Some financial firms have stayed in London because they think that a Conservative-led government will lower the top rate of tax, when it can. I do not know when that will be but London and the UK in general should pursue business friendly policies, in my opinion, and that includes internationally competitive tax rates.