Sovereign wealth fund ADQ has more than doubled assets in four years, boasting a portfolio that spans everything from a stake in auction house Sotheby’s to Abu Dhabi’s flagship airline. From a high-rise in the heart of the city, executives are plotting ways to capitalize on that momentum.
Over a period that included a pandemic, two U.S. elections and a surge of interest in artificial intelligence, the $251 billion ADQ emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing wealth funds. Now, amid a trade war that’s seen some investors look for opportunities amid market dislocations, ADQ Chief Executive Officer Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi is preaching the virtues of patience.
“We won’t go out guns blazing,” Alsuwaidi, also the United Arab Emirates’ minister of investment, said in a rare interview in Abu Dhabi. “We track, we trace, we take time. We are an investor that takes our time to understand the business, but we can respond quickly to a deal.”
That’s in sharp contrast from four years ago when the CEO said the fund, established in 2018, couldn't “move fast enough.” At the time, ADQ was frenetically building new platforms out of the assets it received from the government in sectors including logistics, energy and food.
In recent weeks, the fund forged a $25 billion partnership to invest in power generation for data centers and AI projects in the U.S., appealing to President Donald Trump’s drive to attract funds and bolstering the UAE’s push for AI supremacy. It's also been spearheading Abu Dhabi’s $35 billion foray into Egypt and is an active investor in Turkey.
Those deals underscore ADQ's importance to the UAE, despite the fact that it’s dwarfed by the emirate’s other wealth funds — Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and, to a lesser extent, Mubadala Investment Co.
Its portfolio has grown more international in recent years, with stakes in firms like agricultural trader Louis Dreyfus Co. At home, it controls one of the largest healthcare providers in the Middle East, a port operator and Etihad Airways, which is preparing to go public in a listing that will further swell the size of the local bourse — also overseen by ADQ.
“We’ve systematically gone company by company, brought in the right management teams, put in the right systems for performance, put in the right strategies of focus,” Alsuwaidi said. Now, entities under its control have the tools and financial backing to expand overseas on their own.
The fund is now increasingly sought-out by Wall Street firms seeking to advise on and finance its deals. Research consultancy Global SWF estimates ADQ spent $11 billion last year, though Alsuwaidi pushed back on that number and said there's no set pace for how quickly the fund deploys its billions.
“It’s whatever the market allows us to deploy and what the right opportunity is,” he said. ADQ’s mandate is to fill gaps — “white spaces” — in Abu Dhabi’s economy, and unlike traditional wealth funds, it eschews investing in public markets and fixed income.
Instead, it operates more like a private equity fund — typically taking large, controlling stakes in firms within specific verticals, with a goal to grow its portfolio companies and list many of them locally.
“If you want to sell a business 100% or 51% or more, we’re the buyer,” Alsuwaidi said. “There is no other person in town who says, ‘I want to buy a 51% stake.’”
