SWF Radar MakramAzar

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR) today announced that it has hired Makram Azar, who has been Lehman’s global head of sovereign wealth funds since April, as its managing director and head of Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Emirates Business 24/7 has published an interview with Makram Azar, Lehman’s new Global Head of Sovereign Wealth Funds.

Some highlights:

On the question of how a sovereign wealth fund differs from a state-owned investment company: “It does not, necessarily. Different countries have different ways of deploying their wealth. We want to capture the whole universe.” (See also our answer from February to the same question as posed by the EU’s Charlie McCreevy.)

“Most of the investments are below the surface, people don’t actually see them.”

“Again, you have the deals that grab the headlines – these are only a small fraction of the pie, which today may be $3.5 trillion. … The rest of their investments are below the radar, so to speak, for the newspapers.”

“There have not been any examples of an abuse or a deal made by a sovereign fund for the wrong reasons.”

“I think a lot of the guidelines will have to do with transparency and some sort of limits on the amount of control that can be exerted on companies in the West.”

“We work with our existing products. We can create products, but at the end of the day our products channel investments into the areas in which the SWF wants to invest.”

“Lehman is the only investment bank that has created a global division that spans all the products across asset classes.”

“What we are targeting is not a percentage of Lehman’s business but a percentage of the SWFs’ market – as large a market share as possible.”

And on why he is based in Dubai and not in London, from where he is moving: “I have a map of the world in my office. If you look at it – from Norway right up there to South Korea and Alaska, Dubai is perfectly located.”

Financial News writes that, “While some mergers and acquisitions bankers worry about where their next deal is coming from, others are packing their bags and heading east to take the new fashionable position in investment banking—head of sovereign wealth.”

The article then goes on to list some of the people working in the field of sovereign wealth at various banks.

Reuters reports that, “Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc said on Monday that its head of consumer, retail and media for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Makram Azar, would take on the newly created role of global head of sovereign wealth funds.”