New Delhi, April 14 -- Global private equity giant KKR is deepening its presence in the Middle East as it made key appointments to lead a dedicated investment team for the Gulf operations.
The New York-listed PE firm, with a 16-year presence in the region, has elevated its partner and retired US Army General David Petraeus as chairman of its Middle East operations. It has also established a dedicated investment team in the region led by Julian Barratt-Due, a managing director at KKR.
"These appointments build on KKR's ongoing strategic commitment to the region, including having local offices since 2009 and deploying capital directly since 2019," the PE firm said in a statement.
Petraeus is a former CIA director and former commander of US Central Command. He is chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which assesses geopolitical issues and supports international growth. He is also a board director and strategic advisor to KKR portfolio companies and the Kissinger Fellow at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs. According to the firm, in his expanded role, General Petraeus will leverage his extensive Middle East knowledge and stakeholder relationships to strengthen KKR's presence and partnerships in the region.
KKR, one of the world's largest alternative asset managers, established its presence in the Middle East region in 2008 and opened an office in Dubai in 2009.
Meanwhile, Barratt-Due, who joined KKR in 2016, will lead the new regional investment team to identify investment and partnership opportunities in the region, with a focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. He has played a key role in KKR's infrastructure investments, including the recent agreement to invest in Gulf Data Hub, a major independent data centre platform in the Middle East.
"We view the Middle East as an increasingly important destination for investment, with structural reforms, pro-investment policies, and favorable demographic trends accelerating economic growth," said Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, co-CEOs of KKR.
KKR has also strengthened and grown its Global Client Solutions team based across its offices in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with its directors Patricia Bandeira Vieira and Michael de Freitas moving to the region last year to focus on strategic partnerships and client engagement across the Middle East.
"We see growing opportunities for KKR to partner with leading domestic businesses, bringing differentiated expertise to deliver value while supporting governments' strategic economic goals. It will be a pleasure to be spending considerable time in the Middle East, and to help build on regional momentum and contribute to its growing global presence," said General Petraeus, who served over 37 years in the US military and then as director of the CIA.
KKR's key investments in the region include a strategic partnership with ADNOC in 2019 to create ADNOC Oil Pipelines, which was the first midstream infrastructure collaboration between a leading global institutional investor and a national oil company in the Middle East.
KKR also acquired a portfolio of commercial aircraft from Etihad Airways in 2020 through aircraft leasing investment platform Altitude Aircraft Leasing, which was established by the PE firm's credit and infrastructure funds in 2018 to acquire aircraft serviced by Altavair.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.