First report from Abu Dhabi's wealth fund

Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

The world's largest wealth fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), has released its first ever reports detailing the distribution of its assets, estimated at around 500 billion dollars.

In the fund's first annual review it revealed that it invests between 60 and 85 percent of its holdings in North America and Europe and around 25 and 45 percent in Asia and other emerging markets.

ADIA, run by a multi-national team of 1200 people with around one third of those coming from the Emiratis, is making an effort to increase the transparency of its operations, hence the report, however it has not revealed the actual size of ADIA assets, which some reports put as high as 800 billion dollars.

As reported by Middle East Online, between 46 and 65 percent of ADIA assets are held in developed equities, emerging market equities and, to a lesser extent, in small cap equities, it said. Ten to 20 percent are invested in government bonds, five to ten percent in hedge funds and managed funds, and another ten percent is held in cash, the report said.

Managing growing oil wealth

"World equity markets, already down by more than 40 percent in dollar terms (in 2008), fell a further 23 percent to their lows in March 2009," said ADIA managing director Ahmed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

"A significant recovery in economic activity and substantial gains in world equity markets" have taken place during the following months.

"Even so, considerable uncertainty remains about the outlook for 2010. Most pressing is the sustainability of the economic recovery," Nahyan added.

ADIA was set up in 1976 to help manage Abu Dhabi's growing oil wealth and experience its greatest challenge during the recent global economic crisis. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development last year said ADIA was severely impacted by the global financial crisis, shedding 183 billion dollars of its assets in 2008 alone.

However, as the global financial condition rebounded and oil prices began to recover, the fund's assets recovered last year and are expected to carry on gaining this year.

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Daniel Jones

Daniel is a Politics and Philosophy graduate from Cardiff University where he also worked as a section editor on the award winning student newspaper. After university he joined an IT support company where he was a B2B online writer. He loves anything to do with sport and joined GDS in July 2009.

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