Chimera Investment LLC, part of a business empire overseen by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, set up a $50 billion fund, adding to the plethora of sovereign and state-linked funds in the oil-rich emirate.
(Bloomberg) — Chimera Investment LLC, part of a business empire overseen by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, set up a $50 billion fund, adding to the plethora of sovereign and state-linked funds in the oil-rich emirate.
Lunate is set to start operations later this year and will manage the funds of outside investors and raise new capital. Owned by Chimera and Lunate’s senior management, the vehicle will focus on investments across private equity, venture capital, private credit, real assets, public equities and public credit.
Khalifa Al Suwaidi, chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, will be one of three managing partners, along with Murtaza Hussain, chief investment officer of ADQ’s alternatives investment platform, and Chimera CEO Seif Fikry.
Abu Dhabi Growth Fund is the alternative investments platform of ADQ, a wealth fund supervised by Sheikh Tahnoon, and Chimera is part of the royal’s $240 billion-listed conglomerate International Holding Co.
In March, ADQ and IHC said they planned to start a new investment venture with help from alternative asset manager General Atlantic. New York-based General Atlantic is not involved in Lunate, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lunate adds another player to a region that’s used energy riches to become a major force in the investing landscape. The move is the latest example of the blurring lines between the private and sovereign financial empires overseen by Sheikh Tahnoon, after ADQ and IHC last month combined key real estate assets into a $12 billion property giant.
Regional Champion
Chimera Investment — which is setting up Lunate — and its unit Chimera Capital Holding oversee a portfolio of assets worth almost $20 billion. The firm was folded under IHC earlier this year. In a statement issued at the time, IHC — the United Arab Emirates’ largest listed company — said the move “lays the foundation for the development of a regional champion.”
Abu Dhabi — a city that’s among the few globally to manage over $1 trillion in sovereign wealth capital — already has an array of vehicles, from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority to Mubadala Investment Co. and ADQ, dedicated to diversifying the economy beyond hydrocarbons.
Sheikh Tahnoon, a brother of the UAE’s ruler and the country’s national security adviser, presides over many of these investments. Over the past few months, he has gained control of the largest sovereign wealth fund in the UAE, expanding the assets he oversees to almost $1.5 trillion.
“Lunate will launch new products to further grow our assets under management while we continue managing legacy products on behalf of our clients,” Fikry said in the statement.
The fund eventually plans to have more than 150 employees, including around 80 investment professionals, with offices in North America, Europe and Asia.
–With assistance from Paul Wallace, Ben Bartenstein and Adveith Nair.
(Updates with information on General Atlantic in fifth paragraph)
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