By Nicolas Parasie and Asa Fitch
DUBAI--Qatar has replaced the head of its $300 billion
sovereign-wealth fund with a member of the wealthy Gulf State's
royal family.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud Al-Thani will take the
reins of the fund, which in recent years has acquired stakes in
high profile assets that include the U.K.'s Sainsbury PLC and Swiss
investment bank Credit Suisse, from Ahmed al Sayed, who was in the
job for little over a year, according to Qatar's official news
agency.
The management reshuffle may signal that Qatar's current ruler
is unhappy with the way the powerful fund is run and could mark a
shift toward a more cautious investment strategy, analysts
said.
The country's current ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani,
took over from his father last year. The transition in power
resulted in a political fall from grace for Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim
Al-Thani, the royal family member who had crafted the QIA's
increasingly bold foray into international markets. Mr. Sayed took
control of the QIA despite having been closely associated with
Sheikh Hamad.
"At the end of the day, Ahmed al Sayed is not a member of the
royal family," said Diego Lopez, director of Global Sovereign
Wealth Funds at PwC. "It's my impression this [management change]
was mostly a political decision," he said.
Mr. Sayed is likely to be appointed an adviser to Qatar's ruler
and will retain his title as minister of state, said an adviser
close to the fund, who said there would be no change in strategy at
the fund. "It's business as usual," the person said.
Sheikh Abdullah is currently chairman of Qatari
telecommunications firm Ooreedo.
"With the new appointment the fund could be seen as less
aggressive and outward, more cautious on any of the investments
that are being considered within the organization," said Mr.
Lopez.
The QIA in recent years acquired assets across the globe in
often high-profile takeover battles. More recently, it pledged to
invest at least $15 billion in Asia.
While the full implications of the change remain to be seen, the
move "certainly indicates that the Qatari political leadership was
not happy about how the QIA was run," said Sven Behrendt, the
managing director of Geoeconomica, a political risk consultancy
that specializes in sovereign funds and financial markets.
Geoeconomica ranked the QIA as one of the least transparent
sovereign funds in the world in an October report on compliance
with the so-called Santiago Principles, a set of voluntary
guidelines funds agreed to in 2008 to fend off worry about the
intentions behind their large foreign investments. The QIA was
ranked as non-compliant with the principles, the only fund to be
given that designation.
Write to Nicolas Parasie at nicolas.parasie@wsj.com and Asa
Fitch at asa.fitch@wsj.com
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