Word: adia
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...Zayed al-Nahayan--half brother of United Arab Emirates President and Abu Dhabi ruler Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan--was retrieved from a Moroccan lake on March 31, five days after his glider crashed there. The death of Sheik Ahmed--managing director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds--has raised fears of a power struggle among his 17 surviving brothers for control of ADIA...
Sheik Ahmed was a senior member of the ruling al-Nahayan clan, and since 1997 was charged with overseeing the day-to-day runnings of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA). The fund has stakes in companies including Citigroup, the Hyatt Hotels and Britain's Gatwick airport. Engorged with Abu Dhabi's substantial oil surpluses, ADIA's assets are estimated at between $300 billion and $800 billion. It was Abu Dhabi's wealth that helped bail out sister city-state Dubai when it ran short of funds to complete the world's tallest building - which was then renamed the Burj...
...ADIA's managing director, Sheik Ahmed, who was the son of Sheika Mouza, another wife of Sheikh Zayed, held one of the few pillars of the oil-soaked emirate's economy not dominated by the powerful crown prince and his full brothers. Christopher M. Davidson, senior lecturer at Durham University and author of Abu Dhabi: Oil and Beyond, says that with Sheik Ahmed out of the picture, the crown prince and his brothers are likely to move on ADIA. "Then they will control virtually all of Abu Dhabi's economy," he says...
...veiled. Issues of succession in conservative gulf kingdoms are customarily dealt with behind firmly closed doors, and Abu Dhabi - more traditional than its showy neighbor and U.A.E. constituent, Dubai - is hypersensitive about its image and extremely unlikely to let any split within its royal family become public. ADIA's holdings are unlikely to be affected, primarily because Abu Dhabi's wealth is still Abu Dhabi's wealth regardless of who manages its sovereign fund, and because its investments rarely exceed 5% stakes in any given company...
...whoever assumes the helm of ADIA will be of keen interest to Dubai, according to Davidson. Apart from the troubles with the Burj Khalifa, debt-laden Dubai received a $10 billion bailout late last year from Abu Dhabi to pay off the debts of some of its most troubled state-run companies. "Dubai will be hoping that whoever replaces [Sheik Ahmed] will be someone who is more open to assisting Dubai, rather than this drip-feed of financial assistance Abu Dhabi has been giving Dubai, little by little, humiliating them every step of the way," Davidson says. Sheik Ahmed...