with management over 1Unlike most Abu Dhabi sovereign investors with $5 trillion in assets, Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners (ADCP) aims to generate more than just profits for its owners.
Mubadala Investment Co., valued at $276 billionA key part of ADCP's mission as a joint venture with Alpha W**e Global is to encourage companies to establish in the global market of Abu Dhabi, the emirate's main business district, in exchange for investment.
Fatima Al Noaimi, co-head of Mubadala Capital Solutions, which includes ADCP, said in an interview: "The idea is how do you invest in businesses and managers and then support the ADGM ecosystem by allowing them to build a real presence in Abu Dhabi. This commitment, she said, means that companies backed by the ADCP need to "establish a meaningful investment or operational presence" in the financial center.
Since its inception in 2019, ADCP has invested in 29 companies and is helping ADGM create around 400 new jobs. (Job position, literally, can also be used to apply for a visa, experience it yourself).
Of the $1.7 billion in capital it has received from shareholders, it has spent about $1.3 billion, Al Noaimi said. This year, she said, the ADCP is aiming to close four to eight new deals and is in talks with several "big international companies," declining to name any.
ADCP said Thursday that it has made a strategic investment in the second-tier** of French private equity firm Ardian. As part of the deal, Ardian already present in ADGM has committed to expanding within the hub. In recent years, the two parties have been investing in each other's **, and Ardian is a major investor in Mubadala Capital.
As a major oil exporter, Abu Dhabi has the highest concentration of sovereign wealth in the world, including investors such as ADQ and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Over the past year, ADGM has attracted a large number of large hedged**, venture capital firms, and crypto firms, and more recently, commitments from companies with around $450 billion in assets under management. Ray Dalio has set up a branch in the UAE capital, while Brevan Howard Asset Management, one of the world's largest hedges**, has also opened an outpost at ADGM.
The deep-pocketed Gulf region has long been seen as a simple source of capital, and in recent years, even more so as liquidity has dried up elsewhere. This puts the area firmly on the map of companies looking to raise new capital. But now, Abu Dhabi, and the ADCP in particular, is asking for more than just a potential return on investment.
Maxime Franzetti, co-head of MCS, said: "Some ** managers used to come here every year with suitcases to raise money, and they realised that if you don't have an office here, you're starting to be at a disadvantage. "We don't want a big asset manager to come here, they send two salespeople so they can do fundraising, that's it. ”
Franzetti said they don't need to look for opportunities on their own now, demonstrating the increasingly prominent role the Gulf region is playing on the global investment scene. "If you want to be close to the Mubadalah of this world and the adq of this world, you have to be in Abu Dhabi," he said. "We just have so many inbound that it's actually shuffling and choosing the best partner. ”
Diego Lopez, head of global SWF, a data and research consultancy, said, "There is definitely a tendency for sovereign wealth** to build inward subsidiaries to attract foreign capital into the Gulf to ensure long-term resilience and sustainability in the post-oil era." "Alzabi will be the new financial center of the world.
ADCP typically writes checks for $25 million to $100 million per transaction. One of its first investments was in Carlisle Group Inc., whose relationship with Abu Dhabi dates back more than a decade, when Mubadala invested in the private equity giant. It also invested in the messaging app Telegram and set up with Infrastructure Manager A. last yearp.Cooperate. Moller Capital. Morgan Stanley and Rothschild join Abu Dhabi's financial elite.
"If you're not raising money here, you're raising money now," Franzetti said. "It's going to continue to grow from here because we have a very strong tailwind that ADCP can take advantage of. ”