Mubadala to shift focus to Asia while continuing to invest in the US

The sovereign investor is bullish about opportunities in India and South-East Asia

Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Mubadala Investment Company's group chief executive, said 'growth is in the East today'. Pawan Singh / The National

Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investor Mubadala Investment Company is focusing on boosting its investments in Asia even as the US remains a key market for the fund, according to its group chief executive.

“The growth is in the East today, and if I look at the next 10 to 20 years, where we see growth, it's also coming in Asia – it’s in India, it's in South-East Asia,” Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who is also Mubadala’s managing director, told the Milken Institute Middle East and Africa summit 2023 on Thursday.

“It's in big economies with big population that are growing and that we didn't have as much of a focus on in the past 10 years. We have a lot more focus today and we are building up that capability.”

Mubadala, which invests on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government, is at the heart of the emirate’s efforts to diversify its revenue base and generate income from sources other than oil.

With assets worth Dh1.01 trillion ($276 billion), Mubadala's investment portfolio spans six continents. It has interests in a number of sectors and asset classes, including aerospace, information and communications technology, semiconductors, metals and mining, renewable energy, oil and gas, and petrochemicals.

This year, the fund announced new investment deals in India as part of its expansion plans in Asia’s third-largest economy.

In April, Mubadala and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, a Canadian pension fund, became anchor investors in Cube Highways Trust, an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) in India.

Mubadala also invested $525 million together with BlackRock Real Assets in Tata Power Renewables, one of the largest renewable energy companies in India, supporting the growth of Mubadala’s clean energy portfolio.

However, the company will continue to invest in the US.

“It will remain … an unbelievably attractive market and a key market for us”, Mr Al Mubarak said.

Mubadala has $100 billion invested in the world's biggest economy, which constitutes about 42 per cent of the company's entire asset base, according to Waleed Al Muhairi, deputy group chief executive of Mubadala, who also at the event.

The US will continue to be Mubadala's biggest market for the next five years, Mr Al Muhairi said.

Earlier this year, Mubadala formed a strategic partnership with New York-based alternative asset manager Blue Owl Capital as it seeks to co-invest in private credit opportunities amid a tightening monetary environment around the world.

The partnership was established with a $1 billion commitment to Blue Owl’s credit platform and will initially focus on its technology-lending strategy, which provides financing solutions for several tech and software companies.

It also made an investment in the US-based Aligned Data Centres to expand its portfolio.