The Abraaj Group was once the leading private equity firm in the Middle East with AUM of $13.6 billion dollars. At the start of 2018, the firm misappropriated funds and lost investors’ trust, leading to its provisional liquidation that May. As a result, Abraaj’s fall has instigated fears in investing in the Middle East.
Founded by Arif Naqvi in 2002, the Abraaj Group was based in Dubai and had the majority of their portfolio companies in the Middle East. However, CEO Naqvi was a strong advocate for investments into emerging markets, or as he likes to call them, “growth markets.” As a result, Abraaj had a diverse portfolio of 200+ investments, including a dairy company in Africa, office buildings in Egypt, and a food production company in Colombia. Unafraid to take on large investments, the private equity firm recently raised $1.4 billion dollars for two funds in Africa.
Not only did Naqvi position Abraaj as a successful emerging markets private equity firm, but also he established one that promoted impact investing as well. Abraaj Group created the Abraaj Growth Markets Health Fund in 2017 to improve medical services in Africa. The fund raised $1 billion and received investments from notable organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC). However, these same investors eventually raised concerns that led to the demise of Abraaj.
In October 2017, the Gates Foundation inquired as to why Abraaj’s fund did not invest into hospitals and clinics. Naqvi explained that African governments’ regulations were preventing them from investing in these physical buildings. Despite his answer, the Gates Foundation remained suspicious. Shortly after, the Gates Foundation, the IFC, the CDC group, and the Proparco Group hired Ankura Consulting as forensic investigators to find out whether their money had been misappropriated. Amid media coverage of the investigation and further investor concern, CEO Arif Naqvi resigned from the asset management arm of the firm in February 2018. Simultaneously, Abraaj hired Deloitte to investigate the health fund.
Deloitte reported that Abraaj was misusing money from the fund to cover expenses that were not involved with the healthcare fund. At the time, Abraaj was faced with large accumulations of debt, primarily due to overspending of approximately $30 million to $60 million dollars.
The ongoing investigations and negative media opened the floodgates of criticism and mistrust towards Naqvi and Abraaj, losing investors’ trust and tattering the 16 year old company’s reputation. Naqvi offered to pay back the Gates Foundation and other investors in the health fund, but Abraaj’s executives denied wrongdoing. In an attempt to cut costs, Abraaj laid off employees and decreased expenses; nevertheless, the ongoing controversy lost the firm $188 million dollars according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Soon after in June 2018, Abraaj applied for provisional liquidation in the Cayman Islands.
Although the Abraaj scandal is now over, the Middle Eastern private equity sector’s reputation has unfortunately taken a hit. Ali Al-Salim, co-founder of international asset manager firm Arkan Partners, said that “private equity is still a nascent industry in the region, so it’s a shame to see the biggest name falling apart.” With so much potential, investors and companies in the region hope that Abraaj’s fall does not affect investor sentiment in the long run.