Evolving wealth: Over 80% of Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala's investments are overseas

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Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Company has diversified its portfolio both inside and outside of the United Arab Emirates, but allocated over 80 percent of its investments internationally, its chief executive has said.

“With our size, we cannot concentrate our investments in the UAE. More than 80 percent of our investments is international, because at the end of the day, the economy cannot handle the size of our investments,” Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chief executive officer of Mubadala, said at Milken Institute’s Mena Summit in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

“We invest in 15 sectors, we are present in operations in over 50 countries, we have offices in Hong Kong, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Brazil,” he said.

“From being a traditional investor, we have grown over the years by opening up to new sectors. Technology was a space that we didn’t invest in 10 years ago… Now it is a very important part of our growth strategy,” he added.

Mubadala committed $15 billion to SoftBank’s Vision Fund in May 2017. It also announced in May last year that it will set up a technology hub in the UAE capital in 2019, and will invest in companies that operate out of this hub. (Read more here).

Al Mubarak said that Mubadala diversified its portfolio of investments locally and overseas in a push to diversify the UAE economy, and expanded into new industries, including agriculture and biotechnology.

“We continuously look at not just the past but future and we look at the long term returns,” he said.

“Over the last 15 years, we have become a global player and we built a successful track record by partnering and that is the ethos of Mubadala. …we like to invest in successful companies and successful businesses,” Al Mubarak said.

Mubadala was merged with Abu Dhabi Investment Council (ADIC) in March last year and had total assets of 832 billion dirhams as of June 30 last year. (Read more here).

At the beginning of 2017, the government of Abu Dhabi merged what was formerly known as Mubadala Development Co with International Petroleum Investment Co. (IPIC) to form Mubadala Investment Co as a stronger state fund, against the backdrop of low oil prices. (Read more here).

The two-day Milken MENA summit in Abu Dhabi concludes today.