Asset Abu Dhabi - A Brief Guide To The Abu Dhabi Investment Landscape

foreign [Music] thank you Sarah for your kind introduction and thank you adgm for putting such an important event together I'm delighted to be here to be back I've been tasked with moderating a panel on the Abu dhabi's investment landscape which is something close to my heart and I've been analyzing for the past 10 years since I moved here for the first time and I'm delighted to have such a diverse panel that can give an overview from Sovereign investors to asset managers to financial institutions and of course Regulators so I've been told that the panel will shrink even more so I will make we're going to make it a briefer uh but Bill I'm going to start with you obviously you have work in this space for the past 20 years what can you tell us about the different Sovereign World funds and public Pension funds operating out of Abu Dhabi to them so thank you Diego a pleasure to be here with all of you I've been asked to give a brief overview of The Sovereign wealth fund landscape I think most both investors and asset managers are aware that Abu Dhabi has nearly 1.5 trillion dollars of assets under management with sovereigns and I think some of the more historic players are probably well known but there have been a number of new additions to the to the Sovereign landscape so I'm going to try to move fairly quickly I'm going to identify a total of 10 Sovereign wealth funds that are here and the easiest way to sort of categorize it for me is to think about sort of the three primary types of sovereign wealth funds if you look at the global categorization the first is the is the savings or future generation fund the second is the Strategic or Development Fund and the third is is the pension fund so Abu Dhabi has representatives in all of those categories No One Fund is the same and a number of the funds are hybrid and they play more than one role but in the in the savings or future generation portfolio you obviously have this historic Abu Dhabi investment Authority and you also have the Abu Dhabi investment Council both are focused on long-term Investments the notion of a savings of future generation fund is the eventual depletion of natural resource wealth and a and a nest egg Capital available to to to support the country the next segment is the Strategic Development Fund and the two most obvious space here in Abu Dhabi or mubado Investment Company which is really a hybrid fund and mubado has been involved in nearly ever made every major uh economic strategic development here in Abu Dhabi over the last decade or more and then also the adq is the second adq has an interesting role it's both holding company for Abu Dhabi operating companies and also an outbound strategic investor the third category is pensions and you have the Abu Dhabi pension fund and obviously its goal is to ensure the support of its pensioners over time we also have a number of sector funds here and so we have the new Abu Dhabi growth which is a subsidiary of adq focused on growth and value and special situations and then you have the energy sector funds you have taka and you have mazdar that again fall into the development bucket but are part of a of a specifically within the energy portfolio and last but not least just for completeness based in Abu Dhabi you have the two Federal Sovereign wealth funds you have the Emirates investment Authority which like adq is a holding company at the federal level and also has an outbound portfolio and you have gypsa the general pension and social security Authority which is the federal pension so a total of 10 that I just named very quickly but it's an important part of obviously the overall landscape in Abu Dhabi that's great thank you Phil for that I couldn't have done it better myself um Hashim obviously you have a very insightful view into all these players that bill just mentioned and you've seen the evolution of the Abu Dhabi investing landscape to new players so can you walk us through the emergence of new asset managers family offices Etc from your point of view yeah it's not too asset managers across the sector from the traditional to the alternatives because realistically they've been doing it through idea all the way in the 80s and it's really a reflection also of my career I started in 89 trading Foreign Exchange in India and then when we figured out it's very difficult to trade foreign exchange we went searching for managers and then you know you had the evolution of alternatives and now you are and then we went out to set up another summon World fund that was addict and now I have my own business with with my partner and we have here this great platform that really is opening Abu dhabi's knowledge through Sovereign World investing and all of these managers who who used to come to Abu Dhabi going back to the 80s and now they they have really the ability to share their knowledge and what they're seeing in markets to to everybody so to me the it's a very much a continuous evolution that Abu Dhabi has gone through and you really have a very deep content deep content as if you look through how many people are working or have worked in these Sovereign wealth funds if you just search through Linkedin there are thousands in fact you know I was I was involved recently in hiring staff for a large family office here and I was I was surprised to see the depth of people that they that that they brought and this is not not just the typical monitoring or actually portfolio managers so to me what we have here today is a natural Evolution and it's it's not difficult to do it because you have the content you really have managers who've been coming here for a long period of time you know we throughout our career my partner and I have been a day one investor in many of today's non-alternative managers and that's just because Abu Dhabi has been as Bill alluded to saving extra money and putting it in in a program so you really have a a know-how there is an infrastructure structure and there is a history you know the fact that you've gone through a drop in oil price to a boom to a global financial crisis to the Asian crisis all of these crises you went through them as Southern wealth funds naturally you went through the evolution in fact to me when I want to allocate to a manager I want to see what what history he has gone through and you could say Abu Dhabi takes that box so that's I mean that to me what is exciting about I would have and actually being here today that's fascinating thank you Hashim okay I appreciate it um Kareem obviously uh Kimera capital is one of the latest ones to get into Stage and is making a lot of headlines uh lately so can you walk us through your current Focus perhaps including ETFs and Venture Capital sure so uh camera Capital it's uh again I think we quite evolved in the last two and a half years three years we the idea was to try to launch Innovative products and see the gaps you know and uh we feel in the regions we started my colleagues on the ETF side so that was the start of the business and now I think the launch nine ETFs I think they announced the attempt and I think this business has been doing really well on the and then on on the Venture side again we we saw the opportunity especially back in uh you know like what coveted and at that time I think it was a big Catalyst for for venture and uh the Mandate was to go Global from day one and to uh again we're becoming an asset uh asset manager right so we the idea was worked on launching our first VC fund camera Global fund one and that was let's say kind of our debut fund so we launched that end of May last year we're targeting 50 million we ended up with a end of October we we pushed the limit to 75 and we saw participation from mobadela and other from Regional investors than early this year we we launched another vehicle to the co-managed fund between us and another Global fund manager called the alpha is global that's Alpha Adventures 2 which is a bit over 10 billion dollars commitment and Venture which is basically have a global mandate and idea to back Global category leaders and you have sub categories or sub you know strategies under that fund between India web3 crypto Life Sciences so it's quite diverse we also recently actually last week launched another fund on that side which is a credit fund again this is a two billion dollar fund on the on the Venture again with the global mandate so so yeah we again we see Abu Dhabi and AGM is a great platform and we're proud to be a part of it and for uh yeah we're quite excited on what to come right well there is definitely no shortage of capital here that's for sure um okay you recently joined adx after an extensive career in Investment Banking uh what are you seeing at the moment in adx uh given your privilege overview of the market yeah the final markets both here regionally and internationally and given the launch of the Abu Dhabi IPO fund let's start with the IPOs this year the UAE has listed 22 of the IPOs in Emir of those above 100 million dollars 36 of the value of all IPOs raised in emea was in the UAE we listed more IPOs than the UK France Germany Italy and Spain combined and I think that's a tremendous achievement that we can all agree on and that really demonstrates the depth of the capital markets we've built here the Abu Dhabi ecosystem and the partners that we have and I think you'll continue to see that more and if you look at the IPOs that have listed you they've performed tremendously this year be it Abu Dhabi ports which is up 48 and oversubscribed 25 times through to Baruch and as well and more recently by an asset as well but we're seen fantastic performance and it's not just the IPOs the growth market we've added new companies allowing investors to access a new Dynamic part of the Abu Dhabi economy and allowing the shareholders Founders and families the ability to raise Capital increase their level of awareness without the same level of onerous requirements that a primary Capital markets listing has we've also launched our indices the FedEx 15 and the FedEx 15 Futures seven ETFs with khmera covering the region plus turkey and the us for our investors our bond market continues to evolve with tackle listing 18 billion dollars worth of bonds as well and then of course our first Regional SPAC as well which again demonstrates the forward thinkingness of of adx for investors both institutional and Retail domestic and international we're bringing more and more products and assets for them to invest in and I think that's been validated by International investors who've increased their Holdings by 75 here this year and regionally we launched tabadol allowing more Regional investors the ability to invest directly into our assets here providing again access to the wonderful companies that we have great very interesting okay thank you Arvin sir um you've been involved in all sort of players in Abu Dhabi Inc scheme from the executive Council to adnoc to ADM obviously what are your views 30 000 food view along with the comparison no thanks for that Diego I think a lot of what I was going to say has been covered by Bill and Hashem I think what you've seen is is a very Natural Evolution right today of course the Sovereign wealth funds continue to go from strength to strength right I mean I keep calling it a Goldilocks moment for the region um and so you're seeing that but what we're also saying sorry is the proliferation on the private side right high grade institutional capital on the private side you know we've got a couple of the gentlemen sitting here you know you've got lever you've got Chimera you know we've got players such as ISC you know g42 has just launched a 10 billion dollar fund so there's there's a lot of private Capital that's coming in you're also seeing the family offices I think getting more and more sophisticated right you're seeing institutionalization in that space um all of that bodes extremely well right I mean with the thriving Public Market with an equally thriving I believe private Market you know that's an area is adgm that you know we've been playing a big role in uh with our Progressive regulations right I mean we've got you know we've been very big on on digitization we've been very big on tokenization you know we've got platforms such as SEC currency such as Peregrine that have come into our platforms here and we think a combination of that you know gives you as an entrepreneur as an investor you know amazing opportunities to come and partake and be part of their ecosystem perfect thank you Arvin and I know I'm conscious time so we're gonna do a flash round of 30 seconds each uh for the second question uh Bill maybe you can uh brief us a little bit about the legal changes that you're seeing including the UAE golden visas that have been introduced recently yeah I'd be happy to and with only 30 seconds I need to move quickly so I mean the legal developments are are affect all facets of doing business here you have not only the adgm as a platform for investors and managers but but new regulations coming out regularly whether it's crypto whether it's ESG which changes were announced last week so that's an important area of legal change on Shore you have the liberalization of foreign ownership rules which allows International companies to own up to 100 in most sectors you have new transparency laws dealing with any money laundering and know your customer you have a new data Protection Law and so all of the the sort of efforts around the 50th anniversary of the UAE a significant number of those were important legal and Regulatory developments but Diego just mentioned the golden Visa one of the most important changes that we're seeing is to attract and retain Global Talent the golden Visa is a five or ten year visa for individuals that are contributing to the growth of the economy contributing to to the UAE not tied to employment but my last point last week there was a really important announcement employer-based visas are now extended for six months after someone transitions from a job so historically people who worked here and were on unemployment Visa may have to leave the market now they have a six-month period to stay in the market look for a new opportunity and stay a part of the growing economy here great thank you Hashim um perhaps you can talk a little bit uh quickly about Sovereign funds taking ownership of us and managers as well as sitting funds how do you see this trend going forward uh so I think I mean so to me it's not new as in if a seven World fund is an opportunity in an investment that they want to see the fund and in fact you know uh who if I'm allocating capital and I see an opportunity I want to capture as much possible of it so that's that's not new and continues to be I think quite often from asset managers make the mistake of thinking yes open world fund will not invest if they don't there are no other LPS that is not correct uh second I think a GP Stakes yes you know GP is interesting because at the end of the day if you understand asset managers uh you understand the cash flow that they that they produce so yes you know the region here has done GPS ggp Stakes we for example invest in on behalf of our our investors in a fund that looks at GP Stakes uh so so so so to me you know whether it's an emerging manager existing manager or or an existing opportunity that the fund manager is raising a fund to it's yes you know the this is the place to to come to especially because you have dedicated teams who are looking at markets they see an opportunity and they want to really go go after that opportunity versus having to tick the box as in recommended by a consultant or not excellent thank you Hashim uh Karim very quickly um you mentioned mobada before how do you see the collaboration between the different players within Abu Dhabi so on the Venture Capital side the great thing about it is very collaborative right so you have in every round we have different investors and and then there's always room you know for uh for having different uh entities joining the same round so so again every case is different and then you could potentially collaborate with you know different either Sovereign GPS so we see this obviously quite often and in general collaboration is uh it's quite it's quite active and we have you know always like ongoing dialogues depending if again there is a fit on on the Investments and and all of that so yeah it's quite a collaborative one actually trying to keep it short excellent thank you uh okay um we saw the announcement of the IPO fun this morning what other surprises do you have in store for us for 2023 well hopefully on the successes and continue to innovate to build that Dynamic exchange it's attractive for regional and international investors and issuers so we're very much looking forward to that in terms of the pipeline while the rest of the world is going to continue to experience significant volatility our pipeline is looking very strong and represents a diverse sector of the economy as well as the diverse shareholder base as well be it government-backed family sponsor yeah we're seeing increasing interest for Abu Dhabi adx is an international listing hub perfect and Arvin just to close up the panel um how do you see Abu Dhabi comparing to other Financial Centers such as Singapore Hong Kong why should a company come to adgm to set up here well I think there are multiple reasons right I mean I always look at it through full lenses right it's access to Capital Access to markets access to talent and infrastructure you look at each of those counts you know I think it's a big take access to Capital I think we've covered that enough today access to markets I mean you've got the miasa markets that you can you know you can go to from here and that's an eight trillion dollar market which is huge and you can access that from here you've got access to Talent you know with the VISA policies that bill spoke about earlier as well I think we've got probably some of the best talent globally that all wants to come here we've got over 200 nationalities in the UAE today so I mean that's that's massive and from the infrastructure standpoint I mean you can see the infrastructure around here I think it's quite obvious but also from a regulatory standpoint I mean adgm probably is one of the most Progressive Regulators out there you know whether it's digital assets whether it's common credit trading whether it's ESG I mean we've kind of been known to come out first with all regulations in the space so I mean as adjm we really look forward to it I mean we can have more platforms like this where we bring all of Abu Dhabi together I think you know there's a very bright future ahead perfect well I'm afraid we don't have much more time but thank you very much to our panelists for a fascinating conversation thank you thank you 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