Engineering Financial Success

With assets under management of more than $5bn, numerous high profile investments, and ambitious growth plans, Jassim Alseddiqi’s Abu Dhabi Financial Group is riding the crest of a wave. In an exclusive interview, the CEO and MD explains how an engineer’s mindset has helped the firm become a UAE success story.

- Neil King

It’s not a traditional approach at all. You can see that from what we do,” smiles Jassim Alseddiqi — chief executive and managing director of the ever-growing and increasingly ubiquitous Abu Dhabi Financial Group.

“Some 80 per cent of our core team are either scientists or engineers. We have physicists, computer scientists, mechanical engineers and computer engineers. Engineers and scientists apply certain procedures, methodologies, and a different way of thinking and problem solving. They resort to mathematics, to scenarios.”

Alseddiqi — a qualified engineer himself — is explaining one of the secrets to the investment company’s success: a different way of thinking about the financial industry and how to explore its opportunities.

“But you need two to tango,” he adds. “You need the engineering, scientific, mathematic element, but you also need the social sciences element. It’s important to have a good mix, but somehow engineers last with us longer.”

However he calculates the optimal balance, the formula clearly works.

With more than $5bn in assets under management, ADFG has delivered a 27 per cent internal rate of return to stakeholders since launching in 2011. Primarily exposed to the real estate sector — which makes up 60 per cent of firm’s portfolio — the company is also active in financial services, hospitality, energy, and more.

Among its noteworthy activity, ADFG acquired 68.84 per cent of luxury London apartment developer Northacre in 2013, bought the iconic New Scotland Yard for GBP370m ($483m) in 2014, and in 2016 acquired a 48.36 per cent stake in Dubai-based financial services firm Shuaa Capital from Dubai Group.

Other key ADFG platforms, including Etihad REIT, and Integrated Eastern European Holdings, spread the portfolio far and wide.