U.S. markets close in 2 hours 51 minutes

  • S&P 500

    3,894.64
    +83.49 (+2.19%)
     

  • Dow 30

    31,518.45
    +586.08 (+1.89%)
     

  • Nasdaq

    13,512.14
    +319.80 (+2.42%)
     

  • Russell 2000

    2,270.09
    +69.04 (+3.14%)
     

  • Crude Oil

    60.68
    -0.82 (-1.33%)
     

  • Gold

    1,724.90
    -3.90 (-0.23%)
     

  • Silver

    26.74
    +0.30 (+1.13%)
     

  • EUR/USD

    1.2042
    -0.0045 (-0.37%)
     

  • 10-Yr Bond

    1.4500
    -0.0100 (-0.68%)
     

  • GBP/USD

    1.3914
    -0.0008 (-0.06%)
     

  • USD/JPY

    106.7920
    +0.2900 (+0.27%)
     

  • BTC-USD

    48,727.68
    +5,225.77 (+12.01%)
     

  • CMC Crypto 200

    973.95
    +45.71 (+4.92%)
     

  • FTSE 100

    6,588.53
    +105.10 (+1.62%)
     

  • Nikkei 225

    29,663.50
    +697.49 (+2.41%)
     

NCP Advises on Combination of Impact Investing Pioneer, Cornerstone Capital, with Pathstone

·1 min read

Transaction increases Pathstone's client assets to nearly $25 billion

NEW YORK, Mar. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Nesvold Capital Partners ("NCP"), a merchant bank that specializes in the financial services industry, is pleased to have served as exclusive financial advisor on Cornerstone Capital Group's ("Cornerstone") combination with Pathstone ("Pathstone"). NCP's deal team, led by Peter Nesvold, advised Pathstone in the transaction.

Pathstone is an independently operated, partner-owned advisory firm offering families, family offices, and select nonprofit institutions comprehensive family office services and customized investment advice. With this combination, Pathstone will have offices in 13 cities and nearly $25 billion in total advisory assets.

Cornerstone, led by impact investing pioneer Erika Karp, is an SEC registered investment advisor whose mission is to help investors achieve targeted environmental and social impact goals without sacrificing investment performance.

About Nesvold Capital Partners

NCP is a merchant bank that serves as a strategic advisor to, and makes supportive minority investments in, firms in the financial services industry. We have a particular focus on asset and wealth management, securities, fintech, and related businesses.

NCP was built by the former COO and Head of Strategy of Silver Lane Advisors, the #1-ranked investment bank that guided asset and wealth management firms with $295 billion in aggregate client assets through mergers and acquisitions. With the perspective of having advised hundreds of asset and wealth management firms, we provide strategic capital, thought leadership, and board services to such businesses managing through exponential growth and/or transformational events, including mergers, acquisitions, recapitalizations, substantial organic growth initiatives, and partner liquidity/succession.

Cision
Cision

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ncp-advises-on-combination-of-impact-investing-pioneer-cornerstone-capital-with-pathstone-301237159.html

SOURCE Nesvold Capital Partners

Recommended Stories

  • Budget 2021: 'Now is not the time for tax rises', say MPs

    The Treasury Committee says "significant" measures may be needed later to improve public finances.

  • Bots Encouraged Buying of GameStop, Dogecoin in Meme Trading Craze: Report

    Posts hyping the craze on social media revealed patterns of keywords and were timed at regular intervals, cybersecurity firm PiiQ Media said.

  • Mukesh Ambani goes back to the future with his latest investment in a pod taxi tech company

    skyTran's technology can be used in a pod taxi, which is like a driver-less cable car that runs on electricity.

  • Here are Warren Buffett's 15 largest stock holdings

    Buffett views his stock portfolio as a 'collection of businesses.'

  • U.S. Freeze Hammers Europe’s Bottom-of-the-Barrel Oil Exports

    (Bloomberg) -- The freeze-driven shuttering of core sections of the U.S. refining system isn’t all good news for rival plants in Europe. Down at the bottom of the barrel, losses are deepening.While U.S. shutdowns mean less competition for European refiners in supplying gasoline and diesel on both sides of the Atlantic, they also remove an important export market for the remnants of the refining process -- products known as fuel oil.With much of the U.S. Gulf Coast in recovery mode after February’s extreme weather, many of those barrels need a new home. That is acting as a drag on margins for those refineries that churn out relatively large amounts of higher-sulfur fuel oil.“The U.S. is suddenly not taking so many cargoes a month transatlantic,” said Hedi Grati, a director at IHS Markit. “It needs to find another outlet.”Gulf Coast refineries regularly import bottom-of-the-barrel feedstocks from Europe and Russia, turning them into higher-value fuels like diesel and gasoline. But with so many outages on the Gulf Coast, there’s little appetite from that region for such cargoes at the moment.As a result, exports toward the U.S. from Europe and Russia of dirty petroleum product -- including various grades of mostly high-sulfur fuel oil and vacuum gasoil -- have plunged. They sank by 136,000 barrels a day, or about 40%, during the period February 1-23 compared with January, and by roughly 50% year-on-year, according to tanker analytics firm Kpler. The figures don’t include dirty shipments known to be low-sulfur.Lack of DemandThat’s led to diminished demand for European barrels, which is helping to push down the value of high-sulfur fuel oil relative to crude oil, known as the crack spread. In northwest Europe, the measure recently fell to its lowest since May.“High-sulfur fuel oil cracks in Europe -- but also in the U.S. Gulf Coast and Singapore -- are under pressure due to lower seasonal utility demand in the Middle East and refinery outages in the United States, drawing less fuel oil as heavy feedstock,” Grati said.With Gulf Coast refiners beginning to resume operations, the absence of U.S. demand for bottom-of-the-barrel material might prove short-lived. But there is another bearish factor on the horizon: OPEC+ may start ramping production back up, and its output of heavier, sulfurous crudes is likely to result in more high-sulfur fuel oil being made.“You would essentially be replacing light, sweet, U.S. crude with primarily medium sours, which have a much higher yield of HSFO,” said Chris Barber, principal of ESAI Energy. That “should increase HSFO supply,” he said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Citi: Bitcoin at ‘Tipping Point’ as Institutions Come on Board

    Looking forward, a Citi report suggests bitcoin could "become the currency of choice for international trade."

  • Aviva Plans Net-Zero Carbon Emissions From Investments by 2040

    (Bloomberg) -- Sign up for the Bloomberg Green newsletter, your guide to the latest in climate news, zero-emission tech and green finance.Aviva Plc said it will eliminate carbon emissions across all its activities by 2040, the first insurer to make such a commitment.The U.K. company said in a statement Monday that it aims to cut the net emissions from its operations and supply chain to zero by 2030 and achieve the same for its investments within 10 additional years. Aviva, which manages 522 billion pounds ($729 billion) of assets, will report annually on its progress and also announced a series of interim targets, including an ambition to reduce the carbon intensity of its investments by 60% by 2030.Banks, insurers and other financial-services firms are under growing pressure to demonstrate to investors, regulators and the public how they’re playing their part to address the threat of climate change and preparing their businesses for a future economy that’s much less dependent on fossil fuels. Many have responded by pledging to reach net-zero emissions several decades into the future, typically by 2050. While that gives them plenty of time to achieve the targets, reducing emissions across a diversified portfolio is no small undertaking.“We have a huge responsibility to change the way we invest, insure and serve our customers,” Aviva Chief Executive Officer Amanda Blanc said in the statement. “For the world to reach net zero, it’s going to take leadership and radical ambition.”Aviva said its net-zero goal includes shareholder and policyholder assets where it has decision-making control. It also covers the company’s holdings of corporate credit, equities, direct real estate and sovereign debt.The insurer said it will increase its green investments and allocate a further 10 billion pounds from its auto-enrollment default funds and other policyholder funds into low-carbon strategies by the end of next year.By the end of 2021, Aviva said it will stop underwriting companies that make more than 5% of their revenue from coal unless they have signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative, widely regarded as the gold standard for climate plans. And it will divest from companies that fail to meet this criteria by the end of 2022.Aviva is a member of the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, which was convened by the United Nations and counts many of the world’s biggest pension and insurance funds among it members. The Alliance has set a minimum net-zero target for no later than 2050.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • ‘Markets Are Wrong’: $2 Trillion of Pension Funds Skip Bond Rout

    (Bloomberg) -- As interest-rate jitters supercharged a meltdown in the world’s biggest bond market, Sam Sicilia barely blinked.“The markets are wrong” about inflation expectations, said Sicilia, chief investment officer of the A$56 billion ($43 billion) Host-Plus Pty pension fund in Melbourne. “Deflationary forces are bigger. Interest rates are going to stay at effectively zero.”With governments around the globe still adding to trillions of dollars of stimulus to ride out the pandemic, pension fund managers who are trying to discern the long-term effects are posing the question: Will inflation make a comeback? If it does, more than $46 trillion of global pension assets would be affected as central banks pivoted toward sustained higher interest rates.Interviews with five pension funds that help oversee parts of Australia’s A$2.9 trillion ($2.3 trillion) in retirement assets reveal a rank of investors largely unconcerned about the risk of rising prices.Last week, bond trades triggered speculation that inflation may accelerate to multi-year highs as the inevitable conclusion to the world’s $19.5 trillion coronavirus rescue package. Yields on 10-year Treasuries surged to pre-pandemic levels on Thursday, convulsing markets from stocks to credit as traders bet on more aggressive tightening -- with a U.S. interest rate hike briefly priced in for late 2022, at least a year earlier than the Federal Reserve had signaled.Debt markets calmed on Monday, as investors bet central banks would ramp up asset purchases to prevent yields rising too quickly.“I don’t think they would want to risk any recovery” by allowing markets to tighten too quickly, said Michael Clavin head of fixed-income at the A$140 billion Aware Super, Australia’s second-biggest pension fund by assets. There may be a “burst of inflationary data, but we’re not really sure it’s sustainable.”Wind VaneLike Sicilia, Clavin points to technology advancements as the biggest damper on long-term price growth.Economists have struggled for years to quantify technology’s deflationary impact on everything from supply chains to wage growth -- Clavin’s wind vane for price pressures -- but the overall effect has been to stifle price increases. And that’s not including the increased unemployment from the pandemic.Read More: Aggressive Fed Hike Bets Spur Treasury Buy-the-Dip Calls“There’s still quite a big hurdle to get the jobs back that were lost,” Clavin said. “I don’t see how you’re going to overcome those deflationary forces without some sort of wage growth.”Aware is sticking to a strategy that includes being overweight in global equities and cash in its default option to ride out the market volatility. It also invests about 15.6% of its default fund in fixed-income assets.Sicilia continues to shun “outrageously expensive” bonds and is investing in stocks and private equity on bets that risk-assets will continue to outperform as central banks keep rates near record lows.“In five to 10 years’ time, you’ll have people saying ‘we should have bought equities at 20 times earnings,’” he said. “If technology is the root cause of no inflation, that means you’re not going to be able to generate inflation anytime soon.”While bond markets suggest there may be “inflation in the pipeline”, it might be short-lived, said John Pearce, Sydney-based investment chief at the A$90 billion UniSuper Management Pty.The 30-year market veteran points to Japan as an example where inflation remains elusive despite years of quantitative easing and ultra-loose monetary policy. Markets today are a far cry from the 1970s when a massive oil shock and collapse of the Bretton Woods system turbocharged price hikes, he said.“You look at the marginal cost of everything just plummeting because of the improvements in technology -- I don’t see that stopping anytime soon,” said Pearce. “We’re not a believer that we’re going to see persistently high inflation.”It may be “worth having a look at” 10-year Treasuries if yields climb to 2.5%, he said.Contrarion BetsThat’s not to say that the recent volatility hasn’t produced some buying opportunities.When bond yields plunged to historic lows last year, IOOF Holdings Ltd. pivoted some of its funds from government debt to credit and senior loans. By December, one of the Melbourne-based pension’s underlying asset managers had switched from a long duration position -- or holding securities with higher interest-rate risk -- to a short on signs inflation pressures were building.The wagers paid off. During the worst month for Australian bond returns on record, the fund’s fixed-income strategy rose 0.6%.“Because we’re starting from such a low base on inflation, you’re probably likely to see over the next three-to-six months” economic data showing some price rises, said Osvaldo Acosta, head of fixed-interest assets who studies bonds and stock returns to look for an inflection point for inflation. “The greatest risk that we saw for the last 12 months was the amount of stimulus both monetary and also fiscal that was coming through -- it is just tremendous.”Now, with U.S. yields pulling global rates higher, Acosta is weighing his fund’s position. “Bonds are starting to look attractive,” he said.Even so, most of those managing Australia’s giant pension funds don’t see a return to the high levels of inflation that characterized U.S. economics in the 1970s.Con Michalakis, chief investment officer of Statewide Superannuation Pty, compares the S&P 500 Index dividend yield against the U.S. 10-year benchmark as a bond valuation barometer and he’s now looking at opportunities in government debt after the selloff.“We’re going to hit an inflection point -- bonds near 2% offer some insurance value that they didn’t offer when they were 80 basis points,” said Adelaide-based Michalakis. “We are in an era of slightly higher structural long-term inflation, but nothing disastrous.”(Adds tout)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Texas electricity firm files for bankruptcy citing $1.8 billion in claims from grid operator

    Brazos Electric Power Cooperative Inc, which supplies electricity to more than 660,000 consumers across the state, is one of dozens of providers facing enormous charges stemming from a severe cold snap last month. The fallout threatens utilities and power marketers, which collectively face billions of dollars in blackout-related charges, executives said. Brazos and others that committed to provide power to the grid - and could not - were required to buy replacement power at high rates and cover other firms' unpaid fees.

  • Goldman’s Oppenheimer Bets Big on Laggard Stocks Amid Recovery

    (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s chief global equity strategist says that the market is underestimating how strong the economic recovery could be this year, and that cheaper value and cyclical stocks will be the prime winners from this bounce.“The underlying trend here is pretty clear that we’re moving into a period of very synchronized global growth,” Goldman’s Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview on Bloomberg TV, adding that he expects 6.5% global growth this year amid supportive monetary and fiscal policies as well as rising commodity prices. “These conditions are still very favorable for cyclicals and value, and we think this has further to go.”Equities globally slumped last week as investors rotated out of frothier parts of the market, such as technology shares, amid concerns about a spike in government bond yields. However, the retreat in risk assets didn’t last long and investors started buying the dip on Friday, with the focus this week shifting to optimism over rapid vaccination efforts and economic reopening plans.Cheaper, or so-called value shares, outperformed companies with robust growth in February, with the MSCI World Value Index rising 4.5% in contrast to a mere 0.3% gain for the MSCI World Growth gauge. Goldman’s Oppenheimer said there’s potential for a “big catch-up” in reopening trades, such as travel and leisure, beverages, banks, commodity sectors and transport infrastructure.“These are all areas that still look cheap and can benefit a lot from the kind of strong pickup in growth we expect from the middle of the year, prompted by the faster roll-out of vaccines, particularly in the U.K., in the U.S.,” he said. High savings rates should translate into a strong rise in consumption as lockdowns get eased, he added.At the same time, Goldman continues to like some technology companies, but notes that there’s less room for upgrades to estimates as these pandemic winners are more vulnerable in terms of valuations to higher bond yields or steeper yield curve, Oppenheimer said.On the bond market selloff, Goldman’s chief global equity strategist said that stock investors will be watching the speed, level and reason behind rising yields. A move up of 40 basis points in U.S. 10-year Treasury yields within a month could lead to negative equity returns, he said. But typically, rising rates and inflation expectations are positive for equities because they reduce the implied risk of recession and deflation, Oppenheimer said.“If it’s a gradual move, I think stocks can do quite well in value and cyclicals also. If it’s a very rapid move, then you start to get the problem,” Oppenheimer said. “But if it’s a rise in nominal rates and breakevens reflecting stronger confidence in growth and inflation, that’s a lot more positive.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • New World’s Adrian Cheng Plans Up to $400 Million SPAC

    (Bloomberg) -- New World Development Co.’s Adrian Cheng is planning to raise funds through a special purpose acquisition company in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, making him the latest Hong Kong tycoon to jump on the blank-check firm bandwagon.Cheng is working with advisers on the potential SPAC’s initial public offering, said the people, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. The blank-check company could raise $200 million to $400 million, one of the people said.Deliberations are at an early stage and details such as size and strategy could still change, they said. A representative for New World said the company had no immediate comment.Cheng, who’s the chief executive officer of New World, joins fellow Hong Kong tycoons Li Ka-shing and Richard Li in planning a blank-check company, tapping what has become a red-hot market in the U.S. with over $60 billion raised through the vehicles, more than half of the total amount fetched in all of 2020, data compiled by Bloomberg show.SPACs raise money from investors and then look to acquire another business, usually a private one, within two years. Historically just a U.S. product, a growing number of Asia-based funds and financiers have been setting up blank-check companies with the aim of snapping up a target in the fast-growing region.So far this year, eight blank-check companies backed by Asian sponsors including Primavera Capital and Hopu Investment have gone public in the U.S., raising a total of $2.42 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s an acceleration from 2020, when 11 Asian SPACs raised $2.26 billion in the whole year.New World Development, whose businesses span across real estate, retail and infrastructure, is also looking for a senior executive to oversee its merger and acquisition activities in areas such as health care and logistics as it expands beyond property, Bloomberg News reported this month.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Bond jitters putting markets in 'completely new light', BIS says

    The swift rise of borrowing costs on global bond markets over the last month could completely alter the outlook for financial markets, according to the central bank for the world's central banks, the Bank for International Settlements. In its latest quarterly report, the Swiss-based BIS also noted how wild retail trading-driven swings in stocks such as GameStop recently had helped whip up volatility. The big shift however has been in the U.S. Treasury markets that tend to propel global borrowing costs on the sense that unprecedented stimulus will ignite inflation if COVID-19 vaccines allow economies to fully reopen this year.

  • AstraZeneca sells stake in vaccine maker Moderna for nearly $1 billion

    London-listed AstraZeneca recorded $1.38 billion in equity portfolio sales last year, with "a large proportion" of it coming from the Moderna sale, according its latest annual report. Shares in Moderna, which went public in 2018 at $23 per share, surged more than five times last year after it began working on a COVID-19 vaccine based on a new mRNA technology that won U.S. approval in December. Its shot relies on synthetic genes to send a message to the body's immune system to build immunity and can be produced at a scale more rapidly than conventional vaccines like AstraZeneca's.

  • SoftBank Said to Write Down $1.5 Billion Greensill Holding

    (Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund has substantially written down its $1.5 billion holding in Greensill Capital, and is considering dropping the valuation to close to zero, people familiar with the matter said.The writedown occurred at the end of 2020, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the decision isn’t public. Representatives for SoftBank and Greensill declined to comment.In recent months, the supply-chain finance company owned by billionaire Lex Greensill has been looking for ways to raise capital with the ultimate aim of going public, people familiar with the matter have said previously.However, the firm has been seeking to cut risk on its bank loan book under pressure from the German regulator BaFin, separate people familiar with the matter said. On Monday, key customer Credit Suisse Group AG suspended funds that invest in Greensill products amid concerns about the size of its exposure to firms linked to U.K. industrialist Sanjeev Gupta, according to a Credit Suisse statement and people familiar.Gupta is the head of GFG Alliance and invests in and revamps moribund steel and power plants. Securities linked to Gupta and arranged by Greensill were among investments at the center of a 2018 crisis at Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG that brought down star trader Tim Haywood. Loans linked to GFG also featured prominently in supply-chain finance funds at Credit Suisse, for which the bank teamed up with Greensill.The investment into Greensill by the Vision Fund was led by former managing partner Colin Fan, who recently left his role at the behemoth investment fund. SoftBank redeemed $700 million from the Credit Suisse funds last year, amid conflict of interest accusations. Many of the companies that were financed by the investment vehicles were also Vision Fund portfolio companies, including Indian hotel chain Oyo and Fair Financial Corp.The Vision Fund has rebounded from a rocky spell over 2020, reporting a 844.1 billion yen ($7.9 billion) profit in the three months ended Dec. 31, surpassing record numbers set just a quarter earlier.(Updated with additonal context.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Why Bitcoin Price Predictions Are Unreliable

    It's a phenomenon familiar to anyone who follows the cryptocurrency industry. A prominent figure—the CEO of a digital currency exchange, a key developer or researcher, a successful cryptocurrency investor—makes a dramatic prediction about the price of bitcoin or the general movement of the digital currency sphere. As is usually the case in the financial world, sometimes these predictions come to pass.

  • German Inflation Holds at One-Year High on Energy and Food

    (Bloomberg) -- Germany’s annual inflation rate remained at a one-year high in February after food prices increased and the introduction of a carbon levy at the start of the year bolstered transportation and heating costs.Consumer prices were up 1.6% from a year earlier, the country’s statistics office said on Monday. German inflation surged in January, partly reflecting the expiration of temporary sales-tax cuts, a boost in the country’s minimum wage and changes to the composition of the price basket.The Bundesbank said in its latest monthly report that special factors will continue to impact inflation in the coming months. It predicts the headline rate will average 1.8% this year, the highest since 2018.A pickup in inflation will generally be welcomed by European Central Bank officials who have unleashed repeated salvos of monetary stimulus to ignite price growth. Policy makers have also stressed though that they will react only to shifts reflecting improvements in underlying demand.Global government bond yields have been rising on a more positive growth outlook, especially in the U.S. where massive fiscal stimulus is under way. The recovery in the euro area, however, appears to be lagging behind other developed economies partly because of the slow roll-out of vaccines.Eurostat is due to release a gauge of euro-area inflation on Tuesday.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Huawei CFO back in court fighting U.S. extradition

    Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou will return to a Canadian court Monday for the final phase of the arguments in her U.S. extradition case, which would focus on whether her arrest was politically motivated and if abuses of process occurred during her detainment. Meng, 49, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is accused by the United States of misleading HSBC about her company’s business dealings in Iran, causing the bank to violate U.S. sanctions. She was arrested at Vancouver's airport in December 2018 on a U.S. warrant and has been living under house arrest in one of the city's wealthiest neighbourhoods while her case makes its way through Canada's courts.

  • Bitcoin Tumbles to $43K, Lowest in Three Weeks

    Some analysts worry that rising bond yields might prompt the Federal Reserve to tighten historically loose monetary policy, prompting a correction in assets perceived as risky.

  • Warren Buffett's $10 billion mistake: Precision Castparts

    Warren Buffett makes mistakes too. The 90-year-old billionaire on Saturday admitted he "paid too much" when his Berkshire Hathaway Inc spent $32.1 billion in 2016 to buy aircraft and industrial parts maker Precision Castparts Corp, its largest acquisition. Berkshire wrote off $9.8 billion of Precision's value last August, as the coronavirus pandemic sapped demand for air travel and the Portland, Oregon-based unit's products.

  • Wealth Fund Newbie Comes Into Focus in $1 Trillion Sovereign Hub

    (Bloomberg) -- For all the buzz around Abu Dhabi’s newest wealth fund, the size of ADQ has been harder to pin down.A new report from Global SWF has put a number for the first time on how much the sovereign investor has amassed. Through the transfer of government holdings including the domestic stock exchange, alongside a series of investments, ADQ now oversees $110 billion in assets, according to estimates by the New York-based data firm and adviser.Even in a city that’s among the few globally to manage around $1 trillion in sovereign wealth capital, ADQ has been making waves as one of the Gulf region’s most dynamic and deal-hungry investors, morphing in a short time from a relatively obscure holding company first known as ADDHC.ADQ has also become Abu Dhabi’s go-to fund to accelerate the economic diversification of one of the world’s top oil exporters. Set up in 2018, it owns companies across the emirate’s non-oil economy, from a stake in a regional food giant, film studios and a steel producer to a low-cost airline and the entity that oversees the nuclear energy program of the United Arab Emirates.“We have been monitoring ADQ for some time now and we are impressed by its growth from a domestic holding company to a sovereign wealth fund in its own right,” said Diego Lopez, managing director of Global SWF.ADQ declined to comment.ADIA, MubadalaChaired by a royal family member, Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, ADQ is now the UAE capital’s third-largest sovereign wealth fund after Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala Investment Co. At the height of the global pandemic last year, its strategic role widened to ensure the emirate’s food supply and health-care infrastructure.ADQ has over 100 employees and its combined portfolio of 90 companies have more than 70,000 people working for them. Its chief executive, Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi, as well as several other executives, joined from Mubadala.Alsuwaidi describes ADQ’s mission as “developing economic clusters that act as catalysts to make the greatest contribution possible for the future development of our capital and our people.”Although its focus is largely domestic, signs have emerged that ADQ is looking beyond the UAE following its decision to buy a 45% stake in agricultural firm Louis Dreyfus Company BV and backing a regional supermarket chain’s expansion into Egypt.ADQ is also becoming a prominent investor in startups. Last year, it launched a 1 billion-dirham ($272 million) venture fund that targets early-stage businesses in India and Southeast Asia, with the aim of getting such companies to set up global or regional headquarters in Abu Dhabi. It also took control of a $146 million venture capital fund from another Abu Dhabi government entity.“We find especially striking the change in strategy from infrastructure and utilities local assets transferred by the government, to investments in venture capital in emerging countries, which is a significant departure,” Lopez said.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.