Business leaders from around the world gathered at Davos, Switzerland for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum under the theme: “Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild.” Bader M. Al-Saad was successful in implementing the “Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild” theme to the Kuwait Investment Authority during his six-year tenure as the Managing Director, and I applaud him for that. His efforts were recognized as the Institutional Investor listed him as one of the Top 5 Middle East Most Influential Financiers.
Pre- Al Saad, the sleepy bureaucratic KIA was run without any clear vision or objectives. Its investments where highly concentrated in U.S. Treasuries with only 2.5% in real estate and 1.5% in private equity funds. In late 2003, upon his appointment as managing director, Mr. Al-Saad commissioned a study comparing the fund’s investment practices with those of the Yale and Harvard endowments and hired Mercer Investment Consulting to review the KIA’s strategic asset allocation and draft a new investment program. Since then, the KIA has been increasing its exposure in emerging markets, decreasing its allocations to traditional asset classes, and increasing its allocation to non-traditional and uncorrelated asset classes. Today, about $32 billion or 15% of the fund is invested in emerging markets, buyout funds, and hedge funds.
“Returns in 2009 may prove one of the best for the Authority” Al-Saad said during an interview in Davos with Al-Arabiya TV. How good was 2009? Well, remember the public outcry against the $5 billion capital injection into Citigroup and Merrill Lynch? In December 2009, the KIA sold its stake in Citigroup for $4.1 billion and made a profit of $1.1 billion. As for its stake in Bank of America, Al Saad said that he still expects the KIA to make a profit on its investment, despite the 35% loss. Moreover, last May the KIA invested about $750 million in BlackRock Inc.’s capital increase, and to date it has achieved a 40% return on its investment. Going forward, the KIA will focus on investments in the financial, insurance, and services sector and target countries with growth rates between 8-10% mainly in Asia and Latin America.
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Loading ...Tags: Bader Al Saad, Bader Alsaad, Davos, KIA, Kuwait, Kuwait Investment Authority
Thumbs up Mr. Al-Saad. Way to go..
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other institutions should take KIA as an example
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I have my thumbs up and fingers crossed for him. Hopefully the BoA investment will turn around.
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bravo. now just a little bit of lip gloss and the guy is set for life
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Very impressive…
All other govermental organizations should follow KIA tracks, thats the best way the country can operate efficiently
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Sadly, the biggest risk for KIA’s investment portfolio is the Parliment !!
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I agree with Ra’ad on this. We are in a political mess – sorry to say this – but the next generation of voters would be the least educated Kuwaiti’s since the 70’s (See Tony Blair’s analysis on Kuwaiti education), so there is no way out of this in the foreseable future.
This is as good as it gets!
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ما شالله ! ترفيع ببدر السعد بصورة مو طبيعيه !
شنو الشهادة العلمية إلي يملكها بدر السعد ؟
شلون حصل على المنصب؟
جم موظف تم تعيينه بالواسطه بالهيئة ؟
لما تكتب عن الهيئة ..لا تربط بدر السعد فيها .. لأنه الهيئة أكبر من بدر السعد !
صراف في بنك الكويت و الشرق الأوسط صار العضو المنتدب بواسطه من السياسيين !
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We are doomed if this is the best we got!!! everyone knows that he didn’t earn this post……its all connections habibi..
you can’t get a job in KIA without a freaking Wasta!….even with good qualifications.
what do they do there anyways, allocate to fund of funds.
they are lucky that the americans and the chinese pumped over to a trillion in their markets to keep the party going. and indirectly bailed out Mr. Al Sa`ad from a lousy investment in BoA and BlackRock
any half competent person would have diversified a little bit from the old allocations- esp if you have McKinesy as advisors -
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Sal Reply:
March 26th, 2010 at 3:33 am
Its all relative, and when I talked about Mr. Al Saad I related him to his predecessor. Whether lucky or not, he performed greatly. Not only is he highly qualified in the finance and investment space, but also as a politician whose confident enough to take decisions others would be hesitant to decide on.
Saad- Mr. Al Saad is a graduate of Kuwait University with an accounting degree and has extensive experience in investments and the financial sector. He was trained at Chase Manhattan in New York and the First National Bank of Chicago. Worked at BKME and was the managing director of Al Markaz. When talking about the KIA, I’m bound to talk about Mr. Al Saad and his accomplishments as head of the KIA and his ability to turn around the KIA is something I applaud him for.
Trust me, and I’m talking from personal experience that the KIA is the most bureaucratic institution in Kuwait. Tell me how many have been employed through wasta? I’m talking facts here. Any applicate has to go through a very tedious standardized procedure to land a job at the KIA. It starts with the “equal opportunity” ad they place at the newspapers. How many have they placed in 2009? NONE. How many have they hired from outside their training program in that year? NONE. As a matter of fact I personally have applied for a job at the KIA back in October 2009 and after several interviews was given initial employment approval and was asked to wait for an ad to “officially” apply. I have personally approach Mr. Al Saad, and did I get the job? No..I was asked to wait for the ad and to date, they haven’t placed their ad..No wasta could’ve gotten me to work at the KIA without going to their procedural employment process.
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yes of course, they have to post the ad. but after that… lots of wasta.
even their program where they take ppl to train is filled with wasta…that i know from experince
you know what i know from experience as well? I applied while have gotten a master’s degree acceptance along with CFA level 1 qualifications and still got rejected!
probably all his posts in chase and first national was through wasta as well………..Wafra still do that, and to get there you still need to have the right name and the right connection
“equal opportunity”…. in Kuwait Ha!!!…….sorry, I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore
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Sal Reply:
March 28th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Connections and wasta will only get you through the door, its your credentials that will get you hired.
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Bo6air Reply:
March 28th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
its still a wasta, getting through the door is 75% of it. just don’t mess up the interview….whats so hard about that?!
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