Arif Naqvi isn’t modest when discussing the Dubai-based private equity group he founded in 2002. “In this part of the world, Abraaj Capital has a rarity value comparable to Blackstone when it listed,” says the 48-year-old, referring to the U.S. buyout giant that went public earlier this year. Naqvi announced last month that he is considering selling 30 percent of Abraaj through an IPO on the Dubai International Financial Exchange for $1 billion in the next ten months.
Accounting for some 20 percent of the Middle East’s private equity capital, Abraaj has posted a more than 30 percent annualized rate of return on investments in everything from the region’s biggest supermarket chain to its leading logistics company. Its assets have ballooned tenfold, to $4.6 billion, thanks to capital injections from Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and several of the Gulf’s wealthiest families.
Naqvi owns an undisclosed stake in Abraaj, which means “towering” in Arabic. He plans to use the IPO proceeds to buy a financial services group.
“We want to be the region’s largest owner of financial services,” says Naqvi, who took a first step toward that goal last year by paying $505 million for 25 percent of big Middle Eastern investment bank EFG Hermes.
