Sunday, Mar 07, 2010
By Nour Malas
Of ZAWYA DOW JONES
ABU DHABI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Abu Dhabi-based investment company Invest AD is attracting cash from some large commercial banks in the West as well as from sovereign wealth funds in the East as it targets new markets like Syria and South Korea and bulks up its presence in Turkey.
"We're very active in Turkey. We think Turkey offers a tremendous opportunity going forward," Invest AD's chief executive officer Nazem Al Kudsi told Zawya Dow Jones in an interview recently.
"We think markets like Syria, the fact that they have de-coupled from the global story over the past couple of years, makes them a promising story," he added.
Invest AD is 98% owned by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, a regionally-focused sovereign wealth fund for the emirate. Formerly known as the Abu Dhabi Investment Company, it re-branded last year and opened a series of listed-equity and private equity funds focused on the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey.
Al Kudsi said the company is actively marketing a $400 million Middle East private equity fund--its second such fund--and planning a real estate fund to take stakes in "distressed but growth" property assets.
Turkey's market is one of particular interest to Invest AD, Al Kudsi said. The idea of Turkish ports as a faster and cheaper trade route to the Far East, as well as pan-Arab railway plans, are big selling points for investors wary of a region fraught with political instability and seen as less economically-integrated.
Invest AD is also setting its sights on the East, having last year signed an investment cooperation deal with South Korea's government.
"We have a much smaller balance sheet, but we're street fighters," Al Kudsi said, comparing Invest AD to Abu Dhabi's various other state-owned funds. "We look at opportunities we can capitalize on really fast." The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, from which the Investment Council and Invest AD were spun off from, is estimated to be the region's largest sovereign wealth fund.
Invest AD doesn't disclose the size of its assets under management, but has said it plans to do so as it readies for a public listing of shares in three to five years time.
The company will pursue a dual listening in Abu Dhabi and a major international market like London, Al Kudsi said.
"We're building a firm that we think will satisfy the regulators," he added.
Investors however may need some explanation of Invest AD's new mandate. The company operated as a government investment arm for three decades before its makeover last year.
"The biggest challenge was to go to a client and prove to them that this is a competitive organization and not just a closed government-owned entity," Al Kudsi said.
Investors also need guidance on the region's opportunities.
"It's a hybrid model that invites a select group of investors to invest alongside us in a region that we know very, very well," Al Kudsi said.
-By Nour Malas, Dow Jones Newswires, +97150 2890223; nour.malas@dowjones.com
Copyright (c) 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
07-03-10 0737GMT
